Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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836. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the timeframe for introducing legislation to appoint a national food ombudsman. [15713/20]

Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government includes a commitment to the establishment of a new authority to be called the National Food Ombudsman to enforce Directive (EU) No. 2019/633 on Unfair Trading Practices.

My Department has been preparing for the transposition of the Unfair Trading Practices Directive into national legislation before the 1 May 2021 deadline. The preparations included the launch of a public consultation process in October 2019 which resulted in over 650 submissions received from individuals, stakeholder organisations and public representatives.

My Department is also in consultation with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment which has responsibility for certain related national legislation, namely the Consumer Protection Act 2007 S.I. No. 35/2016 (Grocery Goods Undertakings) Regulations 2016. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), under the aegis of that Department, is the enforcement authority for S.I. No. 35/2016.

Following the completion of the required assessment of the legal and operational matters associated with the Directive and the commitment in the Programme for Government, I will be in a better position to advise of the exact timeframe for the establishment of the new office of National Food Ombudsman.