Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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664. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if she is concerned that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, received the lowest ranking of any antitrust enforcement agency worldwide in the 2015 Global Competition Review ratings; if she will give consideration to both a staffing and organisational review of the CCPC, in particular regarding cartel investigations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19548/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) is an independent statutory body and I, as Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation have no direct function in the day to day operations of the Agency including in relation to its internal organisational structure and investigation activities.

As the Deputy is aware, the Global Competition Review (GCR) is a review of competition agencies in a select number of developed economies.

Historically, the competition regime in Ireland scored highly on the GCR review in times when the Agency was at full staff complement. However, the number of staff in the Competition Enforcement Division declined due to retirements and resignations.

Following its establishment in October 2014 and in view of the significant number of vacancies that existed at that point in time, the CCPC took the opportunity to review its organisational structure to ensure it would be structured effectively and to ensure it would utilise the extensive professional and technical expertise that existed amongst its staff.

The CCPC is now well advanced into the process of hiring 25 additional staff to make up the numbers that have been depleted over the years and to resource new functions. Some of these vacancies are in the competition enforcement divisions. The CCPC is confident that once these resources are fully integrated that it will again climb up the GCR rankings.