Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister who referred to the EU-IMF programme of 28 July 2011 which contained the commitment that the Government would introduce legislation to strengthen competition law enforcement in Ireland by ensuring the availability of effective sanctions for infringements of Irish competition law and articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union as well as ensuring the effective functioning of the Competition Authority which will be merged with the National Consumer Agency.

The Bill does very little to address the requirements of the memorandum of understanding to which the Government agreed on 28 July 2011. The key problem in competition law enforcement in Ireland lies not in the maximum possible level of penalties, but in the low likelihood of detection and punishment, which this Bill does not address. We all agree competition is critical in the marketplace and the prevention of cartels and collusion in business allows new entrants into the economy and we all know new entrants which survive will create employment.

Senators Barrett, White and Byrne referred to the opening up of sectors to competition. It is not too many years ago when I, as a young person in Cavan, wanted to travel to Dublin but the only transport available was CIE which later became Bus Éireann. It cost an arm and a leg to get to Dublin until that route was opened up to the private sector. That reduced dramatically the cost of travelling to Dublin and increased the number of buses provided by CIE. Aer Lingus had a monopoly but when that sector was opened to competition, Ryanair dramatically reduced the cost of travelling, in particular travelling between here and Britain, for which Aer Lingus was charging an arm and a leg. Others sectors were mentioned by other Senators.

We all agree markets must be opened up but we must look at our planning laws. Senator Quinn referred to the delegation from the chamber of commerce in Cavan that my colleague, Senator Reilly, invited here a number of weeks ago which was concerned about out of town shopping and these multinationals providing huge shopping centres which are drawing people out of the town. Eventually, shops in the town will have to close and when that happens, we will be left with a monopoly. We have all seen what has happened in England where people living in some country towns must travel up to 40 miles to shop because the small shops in the towns have closed, in particular as a result of Tesco. Currently, Tesco is trying to build huge shopping centres on the outskirts of our relatively small towns which will result in the shops in the towns closing because they will not be able to compete.

I welcome the legislation but, as our spokesperson Senator White pointed out, we do not believe it goes far enough.