Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 50:

In page 84, between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following:

“(2) All retailers defined as relevant grocery goods undertakings shall disclose their profits in the Irish market.”.

Members had a very long discussion on this issue on Committee Stage and the Minister earlier mentioned the manner in which some large multinationals dance around in terms of their responsibilities regarding this legislation and also in respect of their moral responsibilities in the manner in which they treat suppliers and small suppliers in particular. The Minister has made some changes in this regard on Report Stage but for as long as there is no knowledge within the Irish market of the profit and margin levels of large retail organisations, one is shooting in the dark, which is what this legislation is doing. I cannot think of another situation in which organisations that provide an essential service, that is, food, can so do without being obliged to show how much people are paying properly for that food, how their business model works and what profit level they are taking from this market. At present, it is necessary to extrapolate how they are doing in the Irish market from their annual accounts published in the United Kingdom. The price of food on this island is higher than that of our neighbour. Depending on currency fluctuations, people regularly travel to the Six Counties to get the basic goods, yet there appears to be a queue of people willing to enter the Irish market to provide food because it appears to offer rich pickings for large traders and large grocery operations.

The fact that one cannot get this information also allows them to drive a coach and four through this legislation, because they have huge resources and are using the lacunae in it to offer products at below cost and as loss leaders. They can afford to do this because of the profits they are taking on other products. They are abusing Ireland's public health laws by offering products, that is alcohol, that are harmful. They use these products as an enticement to get people into their stores to buy other products they are selling at prices far above the margin and above cost to balance out their ability to sell stuff at below cost. They can do all this because there is no scrutiny or control over the profit level they are taking from the Irish market. This lacuna is not freely available to them in any other market.

It is time that Ireland stood up to these operators.

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