Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 20 is taken with amendment No. 51. These amendments mirror each other except they apply to Coimisiún na Meán and the CCPC, respectively.

In determining the amount of the sanction to be imposed, the Bill sets out that regulators must take account of the unique set of circumstances of a given investigation. This includes, for example, the nature and gravity of the contravention, the extent to which the provider co-operates with the regulator, the extent to which the contravention was contributed to by circumstances maybe beyond the control of the provider and the extent to which the provider took steps to mitigate the effect of those circumstances.

Coimisiún na Meán and the CCPC will have access to information with regard to decisions and sanction amounts imposed by other member states implementing the DSR. Without access to the finer detail of each investigation, however, that is not particularly informative. That is because of the uniqueness of each investigation under the DSR process. For example, how the provider co-operates during the investigation and the extent to which the contravention is related to the act of a third party will have significant bearing on the sanction amount determined.

Coimisiún na Meán and the CCPC should thus not be obliged to take information related to the amount of sanctions imposed for decisions taken in other member states, as amendments Nos. 20 and 51 propose. In those circumstances and with that context, I, therefore, oppose those amendments.