Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is a good idea and definitely worthy of examination. My Department has responsibility for consumer affairs and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, falls under our remit, so I will talk to my officials about that to see if there is something we can do around price monitoring. I should say that it is clear to me that the drivers of inflation are multifactorial. Some of it is down to monetary policy and the amount of money printed in recent years, combined with very low interest rates by central banks, what is happening in Ukraine and the snapback effect from the pandemic in terms of demand. There are a lot of factors but, in some cases, it may well be price gouging and profiteering, and we should have a mechanism to identify that. The Deputy’s suggestion is very welcome in that regard.

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