Results 16,761-16,780 of 24,010 for speaker:Charlie McConalogue

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: What is the Deputy's question?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: That is fair enough. We can look at that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has assessed it and reviewed studies that have found that laws banning below-cost selling have often failed to safeguard the parties they aim to protect. There is no evidence from the research on this so far to suggest that such a ban works. We can look at our own national experience of when this was in place in the late 1990s or early...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: This is something to which I have given quite a bit of thought. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and so forth have given this a lot of consideration at different times. International examples have been monitored at different times too. There is no evidence, in our experience of this or what is happening internationally,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: That 30 days or 60 days is perishable?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: Possibly, or it could be the case that both sides are quite happy with arrangements. A reasonable starting point would be to work from the European standard, which received a lot of assessment before it was agreed on. A key reason for setting up the office is that it can monitor situations like that and assess exactly what is happening. Where feedback like that comes from suppliers, we can...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: We can do that, and if there are ones the Deputy wishes to suggest, I will be all ears. This is a starting point. Importantly, the legislation provides for exactly that, that it is for us to expand the list and adjust it. As a starting point we are working on the base that is there at the moment.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: On a black UTP the current regulations say, "A buyer shall not unilaterally change the terms of a supply agreement for the agricultural and food products that concern the frequency, method, place, timing or volume of the supply or delivery of the agricultural and food products, the quality standard, the terms of payment or the price, or as regards the provision of services insofar as these...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: First, the office is not required to consider an issue closed in such circumstances, because if issues have arisen on which the office feels it should follow up, the capacity is there for it to do that. My reading of the legislation is that in the absence of a resolution being agreed between the parties, the issue is not closed. It is clear that is what the legislation says.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: We can consider that. Informing a person in writing would be the professional way to do business.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: What we have is based on the unfair trading practices directive. If the Deputy wants to forward that on to us, we will look at it and consider the points.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: The Minister, Oireachtas and Government are the competent authorities for governing the country and setting laws so to require the Minister to follow what an office suggests would not be appropriate. The Deputy is suggesting that if the office suggests something and the Minister does not act, he or she should be accountable for it, but the Minister is accountable to the Oireachtas, the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: Subsection (12) of head 46 states, "An authorised officer may require a person to give to the officer such information as is in the person’s power or procurement as regards any premises specified by the officer including"; and then under (b) it states, "the name of the owner, occupier or person who is in charge of the premises".

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: It requires the name of the owner.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: I would expect it in the main to be employees of the new office of fairness and transparency. If it was a very specialist skill they had to find somebody to do, it would have the capacity to do that as well. The key thing would be the responsibility of the CEO to appropriately designate authorised officers. It is an important position and a responsibility which has to be carried out in a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: I expect it would be primarily employees of the office of fairness and transparency. As Deputy Browne noted, many legal powers are assigned to the authorised officer. As it is a role that carries responsibility and duty to the law, the CEO would have to be satisfied in relation to the appointee. We have the appointment of authorised officers at present for various functions such as, for...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: I will ask Mr. Kinsella to comment on that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: Mr. Kinsella will speak on the rationale for the €500,000.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: The option of a fine would be there. If the office for fairness and transparency is taking a case forward, it would have to go to court in the first instance to prosecute. The court would-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (29 Jun 2022)

Charlie McConalogue: They would not have to pay them.