Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I absolutely agree with the Deputy's concerns regarding unfair pricing. This Government has already introduced legislation in this space, such as the Sale of Tickets (Cultural, Entertainment, Recreational and Sporting Events) Act 2021, which prohibits the sale and advertising of tickets or ticket packages for prices exceeding the original sale price of those tickets for events taking place in designated venues or designated events.

Consumer law is very strong. It requires traders to provide certain information to consumers prior to purchase, including the total price and taxes, which allows consumers to make an informed choice whether to purchase. Individual companies decide on the selling price of products and are permitted to adjust their prices in response to demand once an accurate price is displayed to the consumer in advance of the sale. That is very important.

We will await the feedback from the CCPC investigation. As the Deputy has said, it is independent. I also point out that, at EU level, dynamic pricing is currently not prohibited by EU consumer law. The EU Commission, however, has just published a report on the digital fitness check. It has looked at an evaluation of the effect of three EU directives: the unfair commercial practices directive, the consumer rights directive and the unfair contract terms directive. The result of the fitness check reported that most concerns raised at EU level in this space were in respect of the reselling of tickets. We are actively waiting, however, to see what comes from the CCPC. It is looking at more than 100 complaints that came in regarding this event.

I assure the Deputy that we will learn from its recommendations and act quickly on them.

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