Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak this evening. This is an important Private Members' motion because people need to understand that we are bringing to the attention of the Government issues that are very serious. The Government needs to listen and be willing to respond. People are struggling and they fear they are not being listened to or heard. We welcome the steps the Government has taken so far. We believe there is a need to be firmer, stronger and more strident, and to do that bit more for people who are struggling.

Food price increases are literally the bread-and-butter issues that are facing ordinary people. High grocery bills continue to put workers and families under significant financial pressure. This pressure has been exacerbated by the failure of the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform to provide certainty to workers and families in respect of energy bills and mortgage relief from spiralling interest rates.

The decision by the Government in budget 2023 to provide a rate increase to social welfare recipients and pensioners that falls significantly short of what is required to cope with inflation despite proposals brought forward by Sinn Féin and others who recognise the need for greater weekly social protection increases was a disgraceful decision.

We brought forward this motion to demand the Government do all in its power to ensure savings made by supermarkets and large food retailers in respect of falling input costs are passed on to consumers through lower grocery prices. In seeking that savings are passed on to customers, it must be stated clearly and unequivocally that supermarkets and large conglomerates should in no way try to squeeze primary producers who are also under significant pressure.

A tool at the Government's disposal is the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and it should be instructed to urgently investigate possible price gouging in the retail food and grocery sector. At the beginning of March, the ECB highlighted that corporate profiteering contributed twice as much to price rises as wage increases. The ECB stated that price gouging was contributing to price rises as firms are using inflation as an excuse to increase their profit margins. It outlined that company profit margins have been increasing rather than shrinking as might be expected when input costs rise so sharply. The Government and policymakers have repeatedly called for wage restraint but it is clear that the biggest driver of price rises is companies using inflation as an excuse to increase profit margins, a trend trade unions have rightly described as "greedflation".

Corporate profiteering is a real concern and a significant contributor to inflation. We must question why the Government and policymakers at national and European level seek to suppress wages while letting profits rip.

The idea that companies have been raising prices in excess of their costs at the expense of consumers and workers should be a concern for all of us. Elements of corporate profiteering are clearly affecting consumers on the one hand and primary producers on the other. Both are suffering as a result of price hikes. It is clear the inflation narrative has afforded large companies the opportunity to raise prices, and certain companies are taking advantage of this moment to boost their profits, as was pointed out by the European Central Bank, ECB.

Everything is going up while real wages are falling. For example, across north county Dublin, waste collection charges have increased recently. One company has a monopoly on waste collection and has introduced a charge for brown bin collection while increasing the charges for green and black bin collections also. When I wrote to the Minister on this, he had no answer. The response of the Government to ordinary workers and families seems to be to just lie down, accept the price hikes, and there is nothing that can be done. It seems that whenever something goes wrong in the economy, workers have to pay the price. I can tell the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, that the people of Fingal and Sinn Féin are saying "No". Ordinary people are shouldering a huge burden and they are not prepared to prop up the excess profits of huge companies and conglomerates.

Solutions and measures are needed that benefit ordinary workers and families as well as primary producers. The Government needs to ensure the downward price pressure on supermarket retail prices is not used against Irish growers and producers, who were already under extreme pressure to reduce their prices long before Covid and the war in Ukraine. Over the past ten years, price pressure on growers has seen many of these businesses collapse. A reduction in the rate of inflation cannot be used as a further buying tactic from supermarkets to reduce the prices they pay to producers. There will be no growers or producers left if this continues.

I draw the Minister of State's attention to the survey and research conducted by the Unite trade union in which it found that, in real terms, wages have fallen by an average of €76. This impacts on people and their ability to feed their families and pay their grocery bills.

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