Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

For over a year, workers have been suffering from this cost-of-living crisis. Unite the Union conducted research which suggests that the average worker has lost €76 per week in real terms. The average family is now paying more than €1,000 extra per year on fuel, more than €1,000 extra per year on electricity and more than €1,000 extra per year on groceries. They will be asking where all this money is going. The answer is contained in the balance sheets of the big corporations. We know that in the US, corporations have the highest ever after-tax profit margins. We have new analysis from three ECB economists which reveals that two thirds of the domestic price increases people have experienced in the EU are accounted for by increased corporate profits. A recent Oxfam report found that between 60% and 80% of the price increases in Europe and the US were down to profiteering. In other words, what we have been experiencing is a profit-price spiral. It is not inflation that we are seeing; it is "greed-flation". It is greed on the part of these major corporations and nowhere is it clearer than in the case of grocery prices. The price of 2 l of milk has gone up over the course of a year by 45 cent, the price of a pound of butter has gone up by 68 cent and the price of sliced pan has gone up by 25 cent. The result in real terms is a doubling of the number of families who are relying on food banks in this country in 2023 to survive.

At the same time as this scandal is taking place, and linked to it, the supermarkets and big agrifood companies are recording record profits. Musgraves, which owns SuperValu and Centra, made more than €110 million in profits last year, which is an increase of 12%. Tesco made profits of €2.6 billion across the UK and Ireland, with a 6.6% increase in revenue in Ireland. Glanbia made €257 million in profits last year, which is an increase of 53%. At Larry Goodman's Slaney Foods and Irish Country Meats, profits increased by 27% in 2022.

What is the Government's response? The Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, is going to meet with the grocery companies and ask them very frankly, firmly and clearly to reduce their prices. He is going to tell that they must step up to the plate. What if they do not do so? That is the question that has been asked twice already today. What if they continue to do what they have been doing, which is maximising their profits - operating as capitalist firms in a capitalist economy to maximise their profits? Nothing. The Taoiseach just ruled out the one stick the Government has, namely, the power to introduce price controls. It is there in black and white in section 61 of the Consumer Protection Act 2007. The Government could tomorrow, literally with the stroke of two pens, say we will have price caps on essential goods. This has been hinted in the slightest by the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, as a background threat to say, "You really have to reduce your prices", but now the Taoiseach says the Government will not even countenance that because it will interfere with the market. If prices have not been reduced in six weeks' time, what will the Government do about it? Is it going to go back and ask nicely again? We need price controls.

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