Results 11,681-11,700 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: The Deputy envisages a position in which a large provider would completely change its undertakings and alter its company law structure as a way of bypassing-----

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: I will ask my officials to examine whether there is a potential for abuse in this area. I have not heard of any such cases.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: We are regulating practices rather than prices. In some of the cases to which the Deputy refers, the farmers received the full value but the product was sold at another price. We are not saying that aggressive competition is unlawful, but that it cannot be at the expense of players in the supply chain.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: I have set out the reasons we have pitched the provision in this manner in respect of the international definitions of what are large and small businesses and a comparison with the United Kingdom, which has a model in place. A consultation approach was taken and this emerged as a reasonable provision. There are good grounds for the provision we have made in this regard, which is the reason...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: Under the general rules governing fair trading, we do not provide the detailed regulations that are being set out here. Compliance obligations are in place because we would not be able to carry out enforcement without them. They are necessary with regard to the keeping of records. The small firm for which the Deputy is advocating will also have to be compliant in its practices. There are...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: I move amendment No. 48: In page 81, line 13, to delete “who” and substitute “that”.This is a grammatical amendment.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: This amendment seeks to include a statement in section 63B(1) to the effect that I, as Minister, should include the importance to and impact on the economic viability and sustainability of primary producers of decisions made at processing and-or retailing level when considering introducing regulations. At the outset, let it be clear that the Government is strongly of the view that it is...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: The amendments from Deputy Tóibín and Deputy Calleary call for all retailers defined as relevant grocery goods undertakings to be obliged to disclose their profits in the Irish market. These proposed amendments are stand-alone provisions and are not related to the regulations that I, as Minister, may make to regulate certain practices in the grocery goods sector. As I have stated...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: The point of this legislation is to regulate abuses that arise in the sector. This is not to police prices or profit margins. This has arisen from a concern that people in a strong position can apply unfair rules in the way they deal with particular suppliers that are in a more vulnerable position. We are seeking to deal with that. As I stated earlier, the Deputies are raising issues of...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: We are seeking to deal with abuses that affect small suppliers in the supply chain where potentially unfair terms are being applied. We have seen those terms and are taking steps to regulate so that they cannot apply. The legislation does not seek to introduce new financial disclosures because one cannot establish financial disclosures for one sector and not another. That would be...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: I do not agree that we should seek to have a public declaration of the profit margins of every business in the country. That does not have anything to do with good management of fair market practice. We set up obligations under company law, competition law, tax law, planning law and expect companies to comply with them. I take my hat off to people who are profitable and successful. I do...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: The amendments call for powers for me as Minister to issue directions to retailers not to sell grocery goods at a price that is less than the new invoice price of the goods. The restrictive practice grocery order 1987, SI 142/87, prohibited below invoice price selling of certain goods rather than banning below-cost selling of those goods. In effect, the order allowed wholesalers and...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: I do not agree with the Deputy that we should be involved in price setting across the retail trade. He is suggesting wholesalers would write an invoice price and that it would become the price. If that were happening in another situation, he would, rightly, be describing it as a cartel where the retailer had no obligation but to accept the price dictated by the supplier.

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: The Deputy is proposing to restore a provision which his own leader, as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment at the time, removed. He removed that provision because it was operating as what used to be called resale price maintenance and was an anti-competitive practice. In other words, it allowed suppliers to set a price below which nobody else could sell, thereby allowing them, in...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: I ask the Deputy to allow me to finish. The situation I have outlined was and is not desirable. We must have a situation where more efficient businesses can compete on price and adopt aggressive price strategies if they so choose. All of the issues to which the Deputy referred such as suppliers being obliged to pay for shelf space and so on will have to be regulated, which is what we are...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: My Department's remit covers jobs, enterprise and innovation. If we are to introduce public health provisions in respect of the sale of alcohol - I agree that there is a legitimate demand for such because cheap prices do represent a threat to public health - it has to be articulated by the Department of Health, which is what is happening. That Department is taking a view, for very sound...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: These two amendments essentially propose the same thing, albeit in a different manner. Both propose that where a grocery goods undertaking chooses to enter into a contract with a relevant grocery goods undertaking the latter must have a contract with the former for the supply or sale of goods. I note that there is a difference in the legal framing between the amendments tabled by Deputies...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: The purpose the provisions of the Bill relating to the grocery goods sector and the regulations I will make in due course on foot of those enabling provisions was to regulate certain practices in the grocery goods sector. On the issue of payment, the Bill clearly sets out at section 63B(2)(p) that the regulations may specify the manner and timeframe in which payment for grocery goods...

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: I beg your pardon?

Select Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Competition and Consumer Protection Bill 2014: Committee Stage (15 May 2014)

Richard Bruton: I do not think so.