Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I have said this publicly before. This is a major issue and the Minister was very effective, both in terms of public health and also in taking on an extraordinarily virulent lobby.

This is why I am so wary of competition. As far as I am aware, the Competition Authority has done two things; it has attempted to bring to an end the agreement between the Voluntary Health Insurance and BUPA and hospital consultants for a fixed fee. This simplifies matters and means that individuals do not have to pay the hospital, they have to pay the consultants. It was decided that was anti-competitive. Apparently, the Competition Authority is of the opinion that if people do not have this deal they will shop around for the cheapest consultant. I shop around a bit for the cheapest petrol but like most people if I am sick, my natural instinct is to believe that the most expensive consultant is the best one. It is a perverse interpretation of human nature for the Competition Authority to imagine that forcing people to shop around for a hospital consultant when they are sick will improve the quality of care and the price they have to pay. That is absolute and utter nonsense which only an economist reading and writing books could believe.

The other achievement of the Competition Authority is the whole nonsense of its attempt to prevent Irish Equity representing the acting profession, most of whom are semi-permanently unemployed and very few of whom make a decent living from acting aside from the Colin Farrell's of this world. Competition for commodities in a commodity market or for things that can be commodified is probably the best way to balance the interests of producers and consumers and get the best price for the consumer. If competition is properly run it can be of use but in many areas it can be very destructive. A couple of elements of the Bill give me cause for concern. I am sure that everybody else has, like me, received a letter from RGDATA. The Minister's speech does not address the fundamental question it raises, although he does address the issue of predatory pricing. I am somewhat confused because he said, possibly correctly, that the groceries order did not work, never did what it was supposed to do and effectively prevented multiples from passing on to customers the discounts they received. He must have a benevolent view of Tesco and the others if he believes they were waiting to hand over discounts to their customers but were prevented from exercising their generosity by the nasty and malevolent State.

For years, Senator Quinn demanded the end of the groceries order because he believed it inhibited his ability to compete with multinationals. However, the Minister claimed that the order facilitated companies and was not doing what it was supposed to do. I do not entirely understand why its abolition is so important if it was not doing what it was supposed to, unless it is because the Minister believes a benevolent mood exists among multiples and supermarkets to the effect that they will further reduce prices if they are permitted to do so. They are just waiting and, in the meantime, accumulating an extra bit of money because of the order. However, many of them have asked for the abolition of the groceries order, which implies that they believe they will benefit from such an action. They are not benevolent charities that want to help consumers. Why do multiples want an end to the groceries order, if it means that discounts they do not have to account for will suddenly be passed on to consumers? I am not persuaded by that argument, nor of the point of the groceries order.

I take issue with the Minister on predatory pricing because markets need to be regulated. While I accept his point that it is not an easy concept to define, identifying, labelling and preventing dominance in the market is a core concern. RGDATA claims that the Competition Authority, about which my views are on record, thinks that a market share of less than 35% or, at local level, a company with a market share of 65% is not dominant. I am not pushed about predatory pricing but I consider it a means to an end.

However, if one supermarket has 65% of the entire market in a rural town, it is predatory by definition. By its very existence, it can squeeze other shops out of business because it will look at the products sold, such as, newspapers or petrol. Reports in British newspapers describe the degree to which bookshops and independent petrol retailers are threatened by Tesco's dominance. However, I have experience of Tesco's involvement in the petrol business in a major holiday town not far from Cork, where petrol prices were notoriously high. Tesco arrived and, all of a sudden, prices descended to the level of the rest of the country.

What part of this Bill will address the issue of dominance? Does the Minister accept the figures which state that dominance is defined by a market share of more than 35% nationally and more than 65% locally? That is the basis of his argument about predatory pricing. While I have no great desire to retain the order, the impact of tolerating that level of dominance will be disproportionate on smaller shops and the diminishing numbers of local independent retailers. The disappearance of small shops will have negative cultural, social and economic effects for people who live outside big cities.