Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I deliberately focused on the cost of groceries because my argument is that food inflation is crippling people. The Barnardos report shows that. Social Justice Ireland has shown that more than 500,000 people in this country are living in poverty, of which 180,000 are children. I am asking the Tánaiste what he is going to do about the rising cost of food. He can go shopping in some market and buy his porridge and fruit but most people rely on Tesco, Aldi and Lidl, where food inflation is still rising and there is no sign of it stopping.

We introduced a Bill to bring in price controls on both energy and food. The Bill will not see the light of day because of the ethos of the Government, which will not interfere with a market at a time when profits are going through the roof, poverty levels are increasing and the divide in society is increasing. The 1% at the top are getting much richer. For example, the earnings last year of the Irish CEO of Tesco, a man called Murphy, were 417 times that of the average Tesco worker at €1.9 million.

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