John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have no doubt we are in the grip of a nutritional recession, triggered by food poverty. I appeal to the Tánaiste to deal with supermarket chains that refuse to reveal the huge profits that everybody knows they make. Everyone else in the country has been asked to help the economy. The people who are suffering from food deprivation have had to take cuts, yet the big supermarket chains increase their profits year after year. Surely it is not unreasonable to ask the Tánaiste to do as governments have done in other countries, while this recession is still destroying the quality of people's lives, and at the very least ask the supermarket chains to freeze the prices of essential food items.

The Tánaiste did not answer all of my questions. Will he consider asking the Tescos, Aldis and Lidls to freeze the prices for two years on the 19 essential food items such as bread, milk, butter and baby food? They will still make astronomical profits in that time. We should be asking them to make their contribution to help out the economy, as everyone else has. If they do not bring in this freeze, we, as legislators, have the ability to bring in a price freeze on essential items and that we should do.

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