Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

We all agree with that. The problem is that those quality products are not getting space on the multiples' shelves because of imported product from the UK. I reiterate, does the Government have a strategy to deal with this? In particular, will the Minister agree with the suggestion I made on radio this morning, which the Minister indicated earlier he heard, that, as in the case of the UK, we introduce a code of conduct for retailers and suppliers, enforced by an agency equivalent to the Office of Fair Trading by way of a merger of the Competition Authority and Consumers Association of Ireland. This would ensure fair treatment. Currently, we have excessive profiteering by Tesco which had a 9% margin in 2008-09. To put this in context, the global turnover of Tesco is more than 1.5 times the GDP of the State. It is making approximately €20,000 per second globally and did not get to that position by pussy-footing around the place. I fear Tesco is running rings around the Government and that unless something is done urgently thousands of jobs will be lost in the quality firms to which the Minister referred and at the farm gate.

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