Public Consultation by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine on the functions to be assigned to a new Office (National Food Ombudsman/Regulator)/Equivalent

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, has opened a public consultation on the primary legislation needed to establish a new Office of a National Food Ombudsman (NFO) / Regulator /Equivalent.

Background

The Unfair Trading Practices (UTP) Directive (Directive (EU) 2019/633 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain) was published in April 2019. A key component of the Programme for Government (PFG) commits to:

Ensure fairness, equity, and transparency in the food chain by establishing a new authority called the National Food Ombudsman (NFO) to enforce the Unfair Trading Practices Directive. This new authority will enforce EU-wide rules on prohibited unfair trading practices in the food supply chain and will have powers to enforce this Directive, penalising those who breach regulations. The NFO will have a specific role in analysing and reporting on price and market data in Ireland.

The UTP Directive must, and will, be transposed into Irish law by 1st May 2021. The UTP Directive was already the subject of a public consultation in December 2019. Since then, a decision was taken to undertake a two-stage approach to the PFG commitment:

- Firstly, the Department is transposing, by Statutory Instrument (S.I.), the UTP Directive directly as it stands by the 1st May deadline without introducing additional powers that go beyond the UTP Directive. The S.I. will provide for an Enforcement Authority to be established as an interim measure in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and will implement the investigation powers currently provided in the UTP Directive.

- Secondly, that primary legislation (Bill/Act) would be prepared to deliver the PFG commitment to establish a new Office (NFO/Regulator) and also to include any additional legal requirements beyond the UTP Directive.

Objective of this public consultation

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue wants the establishment of the NFO / regulator / equivalent to bring transparency to the food supply chain as a way of protecting farmers and primary producers. Consequently, this consultation is to seek your views to assist in the decision-making process relating to the preparation of legislation concerning the following two important issues:

1. The functions and powers to be assigned to the new Office (NFO/regulator, or equivalent) in the new primary legislation

2. What stricter rules, if any, should be introduced in national legislation that would go beyond those that are included in the UTP Directive

Some of the questions reflect some of the content of the submissions that were received by the Department as part of the 2019 public consultation on the UTP Directive and which now require more precise information. An overview of the submissions made under that consultation can be found here.

The consultation will be open from Monday 26 April 2021 until Friday 11 June 2021.

The consultation questionnaire can be found here.

Please note:- The survey will not operate correctly using Internet Explorer. To participate in the survey you should use a different browser.

Freedom of Information

All responses and comments submitted to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for the purpose of this consultation are subject to release under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2014 and the European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007- 2014. Responses are also subject to Data Protection legislation. Personal, confidential or commercially sensitive information should not be included in your submission unless requested and it will be presumed that all information contained in your submission is releasable under the Freedom of Information Act 2014.

Data Protection

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is collecting the information provided in this questionnaire to assist in the decision making process related to the preparation of new legislation for a new Office to be established in line with the Programme for Government and for any rules that might be introduced that go beyond those included in Directive (EU) No. 2019/633 dealing with Unfair Trading Practices.

The data will be processed in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR EU 2016/679), the Data Protection Acts 1988-2018, the Freedom of Information Act 2014 and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Consultation Principles and Guidance. Any additional personal data received as part of your response will not be processed, shared, or retained and will be destroyed upon receipt.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and employs appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information from unauthorised access. The Department will not process your personal data for any purpose other than that for which they were collected. Personal data may be exchanged with other Government Departments, local authorities, agencies under the aegis of the Department, or other public bodies, in certain circumstances where this is provided for by law. The Department will only retain your personal data for as long as it is necessary for the purposes for which they were collected and subsequently processed. When the business need to retain this information has expired, it will be examined with a view to destroying the personal data as soon as possible, and in line with Department policy.

The data collected from this survey may be summarised and published and this may include categorising the information collected by type of respondent e.g. farmer, farm representative organisation, meat processor, dairy processor etc. In addition, some questions provide for a narrative text response and those responses may also be published.

A public consultation has been opened on the primary legislation needed to establish a new Office of a National Food Ombudsman or Regulator.