Results 7,481-7,500 of 23,957 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: It will give progress reports, certainly, but it makes sense that you do a certain level of medium-term planning too and that there be consistency in that regard. I would imagine that if it was every year, the reports would be quite similar each year, whereas if you are doing it every three years, there is a bit more onus on you to review it a bit more strategically and plot it out on 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: Yes. It will be reportable to the Minister, etc.

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: Yes. Where it relates to the listed unfair trading practices, the office will have those powers. Mr. Collins may want to go into the protocol on that to elaborate.

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 is the same ones that are transposed in this proposed Bill.

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: Yes. Anyone can make a complaint.

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: Individual farmers can make them, yes. Any supplier 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: This is in relation to whenever a complaint is being investigated.

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: Yes.

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: You could go at it either way but the key thing here is it is in legislation and a legal requirement for confidentiality for the complainant. The reason is to give confidence to anybody making a complaint they will be legally protected and their identity legally protected. This is strong in that anybody who is making a complaint can ensure that is the case, simply request that, and they...

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 office has been set up for a particular purpose, to ensure there is transparency and oversight of the unfair trading practices directive. It would be erroneous to require in law that it should follow up on every issue it regards as frivolous, having assessed them. Its legal obligation is to follow up on any complaint that it assesses as having merit. One of its key functions will be to...

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.