Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I take a similar view on this. In regard to amendment No. 51, at a previous committee meeting the Minister attended and at which we conducted an investigation into the grocery market, we were treated to two days of fiction that would make Enid Blyton proud on the so-called difficulties of some of the operators in the Irish market. When they were pushed on profit levels and margins, they all went to ground and refused to provide that information. Given their dominance in terms of business and their importance in terms of being a service and a purchaser of Irish goods, their ability to evade any kind of scrutiny of their financial model, the margins they charge, their choice of some products over others and the way they treat suppliers is wrong.

As long as that culture of evasion exists and as long as it is facilitated by a lack of legislation, suppliers, customers and, in many cases, society at large is losing out and society is being harmed. I am referring specifically to policies with regard to the selling of alcoholic goods, which can be hidden, and many large multiples can get around any associated legislation because of the lack of scrutiny or detail on what they should provide in respect of their financial model. It is time now that we stood up to them as a country and put it to them that they must level the playing field for suppliers and, most important, for society.