Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I commend my colleague, Deputy Ged Nash, on bringing forward this important Bill. We are all aware of the spike in the cost of living. In four years, the cost of a basket of groceries has risen by more than 35%. This is having a huge impact on families and households. Organisations like Barnardos report that parents are forgoing medicines to put food on their children's plates. We are noticing shrinkflation - the charging of the same prices but with less product. Households across Ireland are having to cope with this cost-of-living crisis - a spike in the cost of living that is affecting every household, individual, family and community.

Almost one third of households comprising an adult and children under 18 went into debt to meet ordinary living expenses last year and one fifth of households struggled to make ends meet.

The costs of fuel, rent, housing, food, childcare and basic services are rising. Deputy Nash gave some examples. Another example is coffee. Coffee is now 200% more expensive than it was when I was first elected a TD in 2021. They say that trends come back into fashion and those prices would have us all drinking chicory again. In seriousness, milk has gone up by more than 25% since 2022. A bar of chocolate from Cadbury has doubled in price. A basket of 25 items that would have cost us €87 three years ago now costs €115.93, and spread over the course of the year, the cost of this basket, if bought weekly, comes in at just over €6,000 compared to an annual cost of €4,500 in 2022. These are shocking increases, and all of us are hearing daily from constituents who are feeling this squeeze and whose incomes are no longer enough to meet the rising cost of living they face.

We in the Labour Party believe that Ireland needs a pay rise and we need to start with those on the minimum wage by transforming it into a living wage. We are going to be pressing the Government on that. We also need to tackle this issue at the consumer protection level. We want to stop the shameless price gouging, and I have to say that Deputy Ged Nash has mounted a really strong and powerful campaign against price gouging. We might call it a crusade to protect consumers. That is really important, and this Bill is an important part of that campaign.

This is not unique to Ireland and we note that elsewhere, the cost of groceries has also been a huge political issue. In Sweden, Bulgaria and other countries in Europe, there have been mass boycotts of grocery chains that are engaged in price gouging. It is an interesting idea but we in the Labour Party are proposing a rather different solution today through legislative means. Deputy Nash's Bill, the Competition and Consumer Protection (Unfair Prices) Bill, would give the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission greater powers to analyse and survey the groceries market and to look at the pricing practices of the major multiples. Critically, the Bill would compel companies to share with the Commission the data on their profit margins. This information has to be made available to consumers. The public deserves to know who is profiting from the cost-of-living crisis.

I might add that all of us are increasingly aware of a practice we are seeing across many different multiples that are asking consumers to hand over precious data in exchange for slightly lower prices on goods. I refer to the sorts of clubcard schemes we are seeing. The irony is that major chains are looking for data from consumers and yet are not providing the State, the CCPC or any of us with crucial data on their own profits they are making off the backs of consumers. We need to see a flow of information two ways, and that is really the kernel of Deputy Nash's Bill. It seeks to ensure we will have greater transparency and information available to us as consumers and to the public. It will also empower not only consumers but also the CCPC. It has been said too many times that the CCPC is a toothless organisation. We need to arm the CCPC with the authority to bring transparency to grocery pricing.

When we talk about consumers and the protection of consumers, we are talking about families, renters, parents trying to put food on the table for children, and older people trying to make their pensions stretch. We have to do something about "greedflation", as Deputy Nash says. I am glad, as Deputy Nash is, that the Government is not opposing this Bill on Second Stage but what we actually want to see is the Government seeing this Bill pass into law.

I mentioned the boycotts under way in much of Europe. In Montenegro, consumer retail boycotts are actually supported by the Government there. In Croatia, the Government has adopted a position of tactical non-opposition. We are not asking the Minister of State to take that sort of drastic action; we are merely asking him to support the passage of this Bill into law, and to support consumer protection and empowerment.

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