Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Meath people are in the majority at this meeting so we had better be careful. A recent IPSOS-MRBI poll showed that nine out of ten respondents believe that legislation should be introduced to ensure that farmers receive a fair price. We are here as representatives of the people and that is what we should be seeking to do. Just three out of ten people were of the view that below-cost selling of vegetables was in the long-term interest of consumers. There is no doubt that a loss leader is made up by extra margins elsewhere in a store. In the round, the consumer does not benefit.

In my view an honest day's work deserves an honest wage and an honest product deserves an honest price. The two are interlinked because if the honest product does not get the honest price then the honest day's work does not get the honest wage. We should allow for proper, robust, healthy competition between firms but this should not mean the exploitation of suppliers. No matter which way this process is cut and diced, below-cost selling leads to the exploitation of sellers. I have been at a number of committee meetings where the cross-party general view was that with regard to alcohol and other products below-cost selling was leading to negative outputs for society in general and for suppliers. Here we have an opportunity to resolve that and I urge the Minister to resolve it once and for all.