Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. This Bill merges the Competition Authority and the National Consumer Agency and new criminal investigation functions are being added to the significant powers which already exist to combat serious white collar crime and ultimately combat higher prices and protect consumers. The Competition Authority and the National Consumer Agency have welcomed the publication of the Bill, which will merge them to form the competition and consumer protection commission, with a dual mandate to enforce both consumer protection and competition laws. Regulations and new investigation and enforcement powers are included to ensure fairness between suppliers and retailers in the grocery goods sector. According to the Department press release, relationships will continue to be based on commerce and prices will continue to be set by hard negotiations. This is in the interest of consumers.

It is important to remind people in the Chamber that the Irish retail sector currently employs 275,000 people, which is the same as the numbers employed in IT, agriculture, forestry and fishing and the financial insurance sector combined. Retail generates €5 billion in taxes every year, including €1 billion in employment taxes, and the sector paid over €8 billion in wages in 2010. Most people in Ireland do not realise the important point that 90% of Irish retail businesses are Irish-owned rather than multinationals, with 77% family-owned.

With regard to media mergers, the Bill fails to address the central question of when a level of media ownership becomes too large. However, the three-step test for a media merger will remain the same. The new competition and consumer protection commission will still determine if a merger has taken place and if it should be allowed to go ahead on competition grounds. The proposed law incorporates the majority of the recommendations of the advisory group on media mergers and the Sreenan report, so the new law will therefore contain a statutory definition of media plurality, referring both to ownership and content.

The most anti-competitive entity in Ireland is the State itself. Recent inflation figures indicate that although overall price levels are subdued, in areas where the State decides or significantly influences prices, they are rising. Businesses are reducing costs to consumers and becoming more efficient but the State seems immune to such pressures. This Bill fails to impose any obligation on the Government to respond to Competition Authority studies on aspects of its own behaviour. This is in contrast to the UK Government, which is required to respond to its competition agency's findings in a timely manner. Following the departure of the troika, the Government seems to have abandoned any attempt to reform the legal, medical and professional services sector. Businesses will continue to suffer from having to pay among the highest costs for these in the OECD, which is akin to a crime.

We know from a recent report of the National Competitiveness Council that Ireland lacks competitiveness in many areas. This arises from a failure of competition and regulation, and the report issued by the council indicated that costs in many areas are too high. Ireland is near the top of the European league for electricity costs, as I have stated on numerous occasions in the Seanad, and waste disposal, treatment and water costs to businesses are also far too high. The interest rate cost for businesses getting credit is also much higher than the euro average. Postal, transport and computer services costs are also on the rise again. The price of a normal stamp is going to approximately 70 cent.

The evidence from the competitiveness council report is clear and the improvement in competitiveness in recent years is being undone through a range of cost increases and pressures. The report states bluntly that Ireland remains a high-cost location for a range of key business inputs. The rate of inflation in the year to the end of March was 0.2% but under this figure is a growing disparity between price strengths in the sectors dominated by the State and those where private enterprise compete directly for consumer demand. The highest inflation over 2013 was recorded in State-priced or State-owned sectors such as education, where prices rose more than nine times faster than across the entire country.

Most of the country's private sector is improving competitiveness but the areas where the Government influences prices are going in the wrong direction. This is directly reducing the living standards and purchasing power of households. Approximately one third of the inflation index is demonstrating large price increases in elements like health insurance, motor tax, cigarettes and tobacco, third level education, electricity, bus and rail travel, postal services, licensed premises alcohol and off-licence alcohol. All of these are influenced very significantly by Government taxes and charges. Private rents are also rising, particularly in Dublin, and this reflects the dysfunctional housing market and may also be influenced by landlords passing on the property tax to tenants. By contrast, approximately two thirds of the index is demonstrating price decreases, most significantly in mortgage interest due to European Central Bank rate cuts and energy costs.

Fianna Fáil believes the evidence of higher loan costs to businesses should be addressed urgently. So far the focus has been on credit availability, which remains problematic, but the National Competitiveness Council report indicates that credit cost is also an issue. Our banking sector cannot be allowed to rebuild its profits on above-average loan costs to business. Where is the Central Bank with this issue? Above all, this demonstrates the need for more competition in banking and finance supply. Members of the regulated professions should be obliged to meet strict price transparency requirements, and one approach would have professionals such as solicitors, barristers, dentists and medical doctors be required to post prices for services, including hourly rates on the relevant regulator's website. All professions should be required to provide clients with meaningful cost estimates in order to protect customers.

There is an urgent need for an independent regulator of the legal profession. It is important to note that independent regulation does not necessarily preclude a dimension of internal regulation. While legislation is before the Dáil to slash legal costs, it is taking a long time to bring it through the House.

Energy costs remain an issue but it looks like the proposed White Paper will focus mainly on environmental issues rather than business competitiveness. Environmental concerns certainly are important, but the issue of costs must also be the focus of Government action.

Reference has been made to how taxpayers bailed out several of our banks. I take this opportunity to point out that the treatment of Tony O'Reilly by Allied Irish Banks has been absolutely abominable. Mr. O'Reilly created and developed businesses that employed thousands of people in this country. He was a huge inspiration to me when I was younger and trying to set up a business. He treated everybody the same and was a gentleman in all his dealings. Members will recall that he and his brother in law invested €400 million in Waterford Crystal. It was remiss of the then Government, of which my party was a member, to refuse the support that company needed. I always wanted to start my own business and I remember noting Mr. O'Reilly's observation that a business person cannot take a staccato approach. Instead, one must be like an athlete training for the Olympic Games, relentless and persevering. He was an inspiration to people in this country at a time when we had very few heroes. His treatment by AIB is absolutely disgusting and disgraceful - likewise the behaviour of the media in putting him on the rack. I do not know what this conspiracy is all about.