Legislation to implement changes recommended in the final report of the Competition and Mergers Review group will be introduced by the Government in the autumn, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, said yesterday.

But while the group called for the repeal of the ban on below-cost selling in the grocery trade, Ms Harney said she had yet to reach a definitive conclusion on the matter and would meet various interested parties before doing so.

Asked why further consultation was needed, Ms Harney said it was not unreasonable to spend three months considering a report which had taken three years to compile.

The Tanaiste was anxious to ensure that consumers could benefit from competition with "the greatest value for money" and she stressed that the Groceries Order applied to certain categories of food only. Fostering competition was one of the few remaining means of controlling inflation, Ms Harney said. Yet she added that the grocery market should not be confined to "one or two big suppliers".

The review group's call for the repeal of the Groceries Order was one of 40 recommendations in its 400-page report which also examined the enforcement of the competition acts by the Competition Authority and the role of mergers legislation in the newspaper industry.

Chaired by Mr Michael Collins SC, the group also called for legal protection to be granted to workers and subcontractors who make complaints to the Competition Authority. Ms Harney said she would be well-disposed to this proposal.

The report said a decision to grant "immunity from suit" should be informed "by a consideration of the balance between the public policy interest in encouraging complainants to come forward and the rights of parties against whom complaints are made to properly and adequately defend and vindicate their position".

Stating that demands for the repeal of the Groceries Order "just don't make sense", the retailers' association, RGDATA, said the review group was "driven more by theoretical dogma than business reality".

These views were echoed by the Small Firms' Association, whose director, Mr Pat Delaney, warned of a price war between small shops and larger supermarkets. The Food, Drink and Tobacco Federation also said it was opposed to the change.

While the report said the group's members remain "deeply divided" on the question of the Groceries Order, a majority said it should be repealed. "Any new legislation or regulation introduced in relation to the grocery trade should not include a ban on below-cost selling," the report said.

It urged that suppliers in the grocery trade be required to publish the terms on which they would trade with retailers and said the ban on "hello money", where suppliers help fund the development of retail outlets, should be retained.

Retailers should not discriminate between "classes of customers", the report said. This would allow small retailers to purchase unlimited quantities of goods sold "below-cost" at larger, competing outlets. In theory, this would allow small retailers to resell such goods at competitive rates.

On the enforcement of the competition acts, the Tanaiste said she would give "serious consideration" to a proposal that the Competition Authority's director of enforcement should work as an officer and not as a member of the authority. "The purpose of this is to enhance the perception and the reality of the director's independence," said Ms Harney.

The group proposed that the director be given power to pursue alleged breaches of the competition acts by means of an "elective hearing procedure".

In this system, parties alleged to have breached the acts could choose to appear before a panel of three authority members. The director would act as complainant in the hearings and a fine would be imposed on parties deemed to have breached the acts.

The report also urged that the Competition Authority be given a separate vote in the allocation of State finances "and should enjoy substantial budgetary independence".

The report said the authority should retain exclusive jurisdiction, with the courts, to administer the competition acts in all sectors of the economy. But it said the authority and the sectoral regulators should "exercise discretion to defer to the other agency's consideration of a matter coming within both of their jurisdictions".

Ms Harney expressed concern at recent departures from the staff of the authority, which has been unable to begin any new investigations into alleged cartels since the start of the year, but added that she was determined to ensure the authority had "adequate" resources. "Whatever resources are required will be provided," the Tanaiste said.

In a statement, the authority said it would give detailed consideration to the report and inform Ms Harney of its views "in due course".

The full text of the report will be available later today at The Irish Times website: www.ireland. com/newspaper/special