Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair for that compliment. I presume I am doing it in competition with other speakers. Competition depends on new entrants and start-ups and on ease of entry and exit. We depend on the incumbents not to collude. In general, I think of the incumbents as the potentially evil people in the "victimless crime" that was referred to by the Minister at the outset. I note Dr. Vincent Power's view that the power of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to take court cases in relation to possible breaches of competition law has never been used. Perhaps that is a power we should continue to look at and perhaps invoke from time to time.
We need new entrants. Some of the Minister's colleagues at the Cabinet table do not believe in new entrants, or in competition, in at least two spheres. I refer firstly to the draconian laws against competition in the taxi industry which were introduced by the new deputy leader of the Labour Party. The legislation in question had to be amended seriously here. The decision to discriminate against new entrants on behalf of the incumbents was made at the behest of the taxi lobby, which occupies the regulator's buildings. We have serious cases of regulatory capture in Ireland. It is one of the features of the economy. The other area I would like to mention in this context is health insurance. We have seen yet another example of this today. The Minister appoints the board of the Health Insurance Authority and the board of the VHI. The market is regulated in the interests of the incumbent and not in the interests of the consumer. We need to have checks and balances against that.
I was interested to read section 19 of the Bill, which makes provision for co-operation between the new commission and certain prescribed bodies. It is important that the Central Bank is included in the list because we did not have proper regulation of banks in the past and we are now building a cartel or duopoly of two banks. The inclusion in the list of the Commission for Aviation Regulation reminds me that the former Minister, Noel Dempsey, intervened massively to push up the cost of airport charges against the wishes of the regulator. The Commission for Energy Regulation, which sanctioned a 55% increase in the public service obligation levy on every energy user in the country without any evaluation - I think the closing date was last Friday - is also included in the list, as are the Office of the Financial Services Ombudsman, the Food Safety Authority and the Health Insurance Authority. The list also includes the National Transport Authority, which has put just 10% of bus routes up for competition. Given that we have been doing this since 1931, it will take another 90 years to open the bus market to competition. Many of the suspects are listed here. We need a strong competition policy against them. The way the Irish "private sector" works involves getting regulatory control over Government Departments and agencies. As Senator Quinn has pointed out, they never act in the interests of the consumer.
I do not believe we have a problem in the grocery sector. I think it is one of the most competitive sectors one will find anywhere. There is a certain irony in a public sector that imposes huge costs on the rest of the economy saying it thinks the grocery business is not competitive. I do not know what it means by that. It is estimated in the UK that since the post-war period, the percentage of the family budget accounted for by the household food bill has decreased from 30% to 9%. I am sure the same thing has happened here as a result of the presence of Aldi, Lidl and farmers' markets. It is an easy business to enter and people do enter it.
The same thing applies to the media. The media landscape in Tralee was dominated 20 or 30 years ago by The Kerrymanand by the Examiner group coming in from Cork. Now there are new newspapers in the town, such as Kerry's Eye, and there is Radio Kerry. I think the media sector is highly competitive. There is something strange to me about the bureaucracy bringing in laws against highly competitive sectors of the economy on the basis that they are not competitive, while ignoring all the damage done by the various regulators that have mentioned by me and by the Minister in the legislation.

The best example we have had of competition delivering benefits has to be in the deregulation of aviation. It happened by the new entrant negotiating a 40% discount from the suppliers of aircraft. He negotiated deals for lower charges at airports. He eliminated the travel agents altogether because they were looking for 9% and sometimes 17%. A market is dynamic. It annoys people but it delivers benefits to consumers. Bread does not appear because a bunch of philanthropists got together and said, "Let's make some bread." It appears because the blowtorch of competition brings it to our shops every day. There is too much emphasis on the media and on groceries in the Bill - as far as I can see they are highly competitive sectors - and too little on the State monopolies, the sheltered sector services, which have held back this economy for many years.

I am disappointed that according to what Senator Hayden cited, there appeared to be either no saving from the amalgamation of the two agencies because one of them was in Cork and had to be brought back or it is €170,000 which is minuscule out of the total consumer expenditure in this country. I note that the other mergers the Minister announced at lunchtime today will deliver productivity increases. Those are in the industrial relations area and I commend the Minister on that. We need to deliver benefits that people can actually measure from these mergers.