Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in today. They have given us a very good overview. I have to confess to having some skin in this game. I grew up many years ago in a small rural filling station. I am very aware of some of the issues in recent weeks. I have great empathy for the small filling station operators and their staff, many of whom have been vilified over the past couple of weeks. I agree with Mr. Godfrey who gave a reasonable overview of the ecology of the fuel retail business. I would, however, take issue where he said that most businesses are not in a dominant position. Unfortunately a number of businesses in fuel retail are emerging as very much dominant players. Some of them capitalised on the humanitarian crisis and war in Ukraine to the detriment of Irish consumers.

I am going to give Mr. Godfrey the view of one of those very small rural retailers. There were no fuel price increases over the course of a weekend but over the five working days diesel was increased by 33 cent a litre and petrol by just under 20 cent a litre. That was in the days immediately leading up to the excise reduction, which was 20 cent on petrol and 15 cent on diesel. The forecourt operators have no control over that. As Mr. Godfrey rightly points out we are a price taker in this. I do not believe we have mentioned what I think is the big issue in this, the fuel importers and warehouses. I understand there are three in Dublin, one in Cork and one in Limerick. While we are price takers I would have a concern that the price may be coming from there rather than from global issues. Another concern which I hope will come out in the scope of the commission's investigation in the coming months is that while many of the smaller retailers operating as branded filling stations pride themselves on delivering a very good service at a fair price, they feel they are being bullied out of the trade at this point by the larger, dominant groups that are intent on gaining market share. The more fuel they are able to sell the greater their buying power. They are able to get fuel at a lower price. Is the investigation going to take in those fuel importers and warehouses? Has the commission had any engagement with those entities thus far or previously? Are they on the commission's radar in terms of any of its ongoing investigations?

I will come back to Mr. Godfrey when he responds to that.