Publication
General Scheme of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chain Bill 2022
From Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
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The Programme for Government (PFG) includes a commitment 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 General Scheme of a Bill to give effect to the above Programme for Government commitment was agreed by Cabinet on 22 March 2022.
The Bill will, inter alia, establish a new independent statutory Authority to be known as the “Office for Fairness and Transparency in the Agri-Food Supply Chain”.
The objective of the new Office will be to promote the principles of fairness and transparency in the agricultural and food supply chain, and it will principally do this in two ways:
• by performing a price / market analysis and reporting function. The new Office will endeavour to bring greater transparency to the agricultural and food supply chain by carrying out market analysis on publicly available agricultural and food supply chain data and by producing reports that will be made available to stakeholders and the wider public.
• the new Office will be responsible for ensuring that fairness is observed in the agricultural and food supply chain by becoming the State’s designated enforcement authority for enforcing the rules on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain.
With regard to the Unfair Trading Practices Directive, currently enforced by the interim UTP Enforcement Authority in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Minister McConalogue’s intention is to repeal the current UTP Regulations and to use the enabling provisions in the Bill to provide for the transfer of responsibility for UTP enforcement functions from his Department to the remit of the new Office. This is expected to occur at the time of commencement of the Act.
The Authority has all the necessary powers to investigate complaints under the current UTP Regulations. Suppliers can submit complaints in confidence online through the Authority’s website www.utp.gov.ie
Summary Outline of the General Scheme Head of the Bill
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