Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

The Minister knows more, of course. They are merely operating in the business.

What we have over the entire duration of the groceries order makes virtually no difference to the bulk of the sector, except in the most recent two years, and that is not because items covered by the groceries order have dramatically increased. They have not.

I am a little at a loss to know why the revocation of the groceries order became the priority of the Minister. I suppose Eddie Hobbs might be an explanation in that following his programmes, the Minister had to be seen doing something, and the supermarkets, God knows, are much easier to handle than those "ornery lawyers", for example, if the Minister wanted to attack an uncompetitive sector. The lawyers would be a more difficult nut to crack.

See this speech in context