Unfair trading practices (UTPs) need to be policed by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), or an independent retail regulator is urgently needed, IFA president Joe Healy has said.

In his address to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture on 16 October, he repeatedly rebuked the CCPC for their failure of farmers in the retail system.

“The single biggest issue for farmers is that they have no confidence in the CCPC to enforce the regulation as it stands,” Healy said.

This is going on all the time and the CCPC is just sitting on its hands.

“Everyday examples of UTPs are late payments, cancellation at short notice of perishable food product order and changing terms of a contract without any notice. This is going on all the time and the CCPC is just sitting on its hands.”

Healy insisted that the CCPC had been “invisible in the policing and enforcing” of regulations that were announced in April 2016, and highlighted the problem of retailer control with Tesco, SuperValu, Dunnes Stores, Aldi and Lidl controlling 94% of the market share.

The proposed directive holds up the UK model as best practice

He urged the government to adopt an EU directive on UTPs as soon as it was implemented.

“The establishment by the Government of a visible and active independent retail regulator would give confidence to farmers that their complaints would be taken seriously and pursued,” Healy said.

“The proposed directive holds up the UK model as best practice, and this is the model that IFA wants the Irish Government to follow.”

Read more

Split views on unfair trading practices legislation

MEPs vote to ‘arm the weakest in the supply chain’