Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

It is very important to develop other routes to market for horticultural growers. We depend to an excessive degree on a small number of multinational retailers which can determine the price they want to pay for produce.

Is it possible to take additional measures to address the issue? Proposals have been made to introduce a code of practice or establish a retail ombudsman. I suggest we develop a culture of thriving retail markets. In the past ten or 20 years, retail markets have been essentially killed off. As a councillor in the inner city, I witnessed the closure of the Iveagh Market and the demise of the fish market.

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