Consumer and competition Bill
Deputy Calleary asks when the long-delayed consumer and competition Bill, including media-merger provisions, will be published. Deputy Howlin says it will appear this session.
Is that Dáil reform? I refer to the consumer and competition Bill which has been listed for some time. There is a complex disagreement in Government between the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Pat Rabbitte, and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, about who "owns" the Bill.
The Minister, Deputy Bruton, seems to have won that argument and I know that Fine Gael seem very concerned about media mergers for some reason. When will the Bill be published? Why has the Cabinet decided that media mergers, given the importance of the issue, are not being dealt with through separate legislation, as opposed to being tagged on to the consumer and competition Bill?
Comment on this
The Bill will be published this session.