Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Section 3 is ancillary to section 2. It relates to section 4 of the Competition Act 2002 and seeks to provide for an application to a scheme for payments out of public funds by a public body to members of a profession. It concerns instances where the Government makes a declaration a public interest in negotiating a collective agreement on a national level with an organisation representative of a profession. It seeks to cover those sorts of agreements to ensure they do not breach the Competition Act 2002 and to provide for an exemption to section 4 of the Competition Act 2002. While it is not as urgent as section 2, it is a related issue concerning the application of the Competition Act to collective bargaining.