Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

There are more than 670,000 people in the country living in poverty, including 190,000 children. The number of older people living in poverty has increased by 40% in the past two years alone. The poorest 10% of households spend almost half their income on food and energy. Whatever is left is spent on the extortionate housing costs. This is not sustainable. The energy companies are simply ignoring the Government's calls to lower prices. Nearly 25% of gas customers are in arrears. It is likely that supermarkets will ignore the Government's calls as well.

A meeting of the retail forum has been convened for tomorrow, but the Taoiseach is going into those talks without a very crucial piece of information. None of the major supermarket groups publish their profits for their operations here. They tell us they are not profiteering, but they refuse to come clean about their profit margins. At the meeting of the retail forum tomorrow, will the Government ask the supermarket groups to finally come clean about their profits here?

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