Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the Minister's very significant contribution to this legislation and his proactive collective engagement. He is one of the few Ministers I can say this about. He said that it was a collective effort. He listened to amendments in the Dáil. I played back the debate and read some of it. He engaged very constructively with the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, of which I am a member. I take this opportunity to thank in particular Senator Paul Daly, who is a very active member of the committee on all matters to do with agriculture, food and the marine, contributes very constructively and robustly to all pieces of legislation and teases out the challenges around them. The Minister would know that so it is important to acknowledge that the parliamentary legislative process was maximised and was flexible. I thought there were a lot of clever Ministers and this is not to do them all down but they do not even have the bottle to come in here and salute someone with half of a good idea and say "look, we'll work on it". For most Ministers in this coalition Government, it is "no, no, no", which is not a clever move. Remember the people when you are going up but remember that all of us in political life will be coming down. I want to acknowledge on the record of this House today that the Minister has been pragmatic and engaging.

The genesis of this legislation could not have happened without the support of the Green Party and Fine Gael, the Minister's partners in government. That is important because if you look at all their documents, you can see that they touched on issues relating to regulation in this sector.

It is also important to acknowledge that this Bill gives effect to Directive 2019/633 on unfair trading practices from business to business and relationships with the agrifood sector chain, so there was a requirement at some point for us to bring this on. I know the Minister was very conscious of that.

Senator Paul Daly touched on the pre-legislative scrutiny, which was effective. We teased out the issues. Most of them were incorporated into the final Bill, which was important. We note that the text of the initial draft of the Bill changed following pre-legislative scrutiny on foot of most recommendations of the committee. The Bill now includes provision for an increase in the maximum fine up to €10 million or 10% of global turnover. It is important to acknowledge this. The Bill empowers the regulator to acquire information to examine and publish reports on production costs, which is also an important function. It focuses and has the power to strengthen greater transparency in the sector. That is what the sector was looking and that is what it is getting so something important has been achieved through this legislation.

The committee's recommendation to extend the scope of the Bill to include business-to-customer relationships was rejected on the grounds - the Minister can challenge or check me on this if I am not fully correct - that there were already existing established legislative frameworks for those relationships so that covered that. That is fair. Nobody gets it all right. That is the great engagement and traction the Minister provided for. We teased that out and there was a reason for its rejection. Also rejected was the proposal to give the regulator certain competition-related powers of enforcement on the grounds that the CCPC more appropriately holds these powers. Again, there was a rationale for it and I think when you give the rationale and explain it, it is very easy to understand.The Bill seeks to address the issues of unfair trading practice in business-to-business relationships in the agriculture and food-agrifood supply chain, which is important. The Bill provides for principles of fairness and transparency and aims to strengthen the position of farmers, fishers and other suppliers in the agrifood supply chain. It aims to ensure proper enforcement of UTP rules. The Bill also establishes a new office of fairness and transparency in the agrifood supply chain, known as the regulator, which will replace the existing unfair trading practices enforcement authority as the designated enforcement authority for unfair trading practices in the agrifood sectors.

I am conscious that the Minister announced the appointment of Niamh Lenehan as the CEO-designate of the regulator. Her CV is impeccable and she is an amazing person. I have come across her myself. It was warmly welcomed. The Minister managed to identify someone with an enormous skill set that will work well here. I acknowledge that.

The proposed functions and powers of enforcement of the regulator under the Bill include: strengthening the rights of farmers, fishers and other suppliers, which is important; price and marketing analysis reporting on domestic and foreign agricultural food markets to strengthen suppliers’ positions in the supply chain against large buyers, which is also very important; increasing the enforcement and rules in governing UTPs and encouraging better compliance - something the sector has been asking for - including public awareness campaigns, which there is a great demand for; and the publication of guidelines for investigation of suspected breaches. As the Minister said, the regulator’s office will be able to enter the premises for inspections, including of vehicles and lands; examine documents and records and make potential seizures where there are reasonable grounds to support an offence, which was teased out to some extent during the pre-legislative scrutiny and in the Dáil; issue compliance notices regarding known, proven breaches, and there will be a process to do that; and issue a fixed payment notice of €1,000 in appropriate circumstances and initiate summary proceedings for the failure to make such fixed payment notices.

In essence, I am supportive of this Bill. In addition, the regulator will be able to refer cases to the Director of Public Prosecutions where the regulator has reasonable grounds for believing that an indictable offence under the Bill has been committed, which is important. The regulator may also promote the use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. It is always a good thing in policy to consider alternative mechanisms for the resolution of disputes. That is what we want; we want resolution. We want to put the brakes on people. We want to tease out the issues and challenges but we want fairness, openness and transparency in all these processes.

The legislation is timely and responsive to the demands of the sector and I am very much supportive of it. I acknowledge the Minister's determination to drive this through. It was not quite what we originally talked about in terms of an ombudsman-type figure but I think it is the right one. Its primary responsibility, as the Minister said and has always argued, is to promote fairness and transparency in agriculture and the food chain. The provisions of the Bill are important because the regulator will now be have power under this legislation to have the price, market analysis and reporting functions as well as regulatory enforcement functions concerning prohibited UTPs.

In conclusion, the Minister was right to drive the agenda through. He had the support of Government parties. This is positive legislation and the issue now is to communicate the messages. Like anything, we had discussions yesterday and the past few weeks about different issues and policies. It is about getting clear, crisp clarity around the Minister’s message that is honourable, full of integrity and is facts, not fiction. I wish the Minister well with this Bill.