Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister and I welcome this debate. There is not much doubt about what the question is here. I will speak only about the groceries order because it is something I know about.

Senator Coghlan stated that prices are high in Ireland because costs are higher. However, prices are higher in Ireland in similar areas because sufficient competition does not exist. Taking the example of what happened in the airline business ten or 15 years ago, we used to pay £239, if I remember correctly, to fly to London. Two airlines could be used and both charged the same price, agreed between them. Competition was introduced, and a person can now travel to the same destination for a far lower price.

The decision on the groceries order is a difficult one that I know will not be popular no matter which way it is decided. With the decision being made, the Fianna Fáil and Government spokesman talks about urging caution, even after all these years of debate. On the other side, Fine Gael puts down an amendment which does not refer to the groceries order. It is possible that people do not want to make decisions. The Minister will have to make a decision and he has done the right thing in putting a deadline on making the decision, which I see is only four or five weeks away at the end of July.

When I started in business in 1960 no groceries order existed. I wanted to compete and I had the choice of either taking out a £10,000 advertisement in the Irish Independent or selling 100,000 items at 10p less than cost price. I decided that the latter was a much better way to do business. It was more in the interest of the consumer, who got something at a lower price. I sold butter, sugar or whatever the popular item in those days was at 10p below cost. This aggravated the competitors but customers loved it. This strategy was not advertised because word of mouth was a better advertisement. Below-cost selling is a benefit to the consumer.

Legislation was then introduced which prohibited such a sales strategy because it was deemed not to be fair on others. In those days, a buyer would ask a supplier for a lower price on bulk orders. However, more legislation was introduced prohibiting the bullying of suppliers. The supplier was then not expected to give the buyer a lower price because it was not fair on the suppliers. We have made illegal things that actually created lower prices. Disadvantages did exist, and competitors, who may have been used to meeting each other to fix prices, felt such practices were unfair. In those days, a concept called retail price maintenance existed. In the 1950s legislation was introduced to eliminate this, with the result of more competition, lower prices becoming evident and customers being able to decide what they wanted to do.

An alternative to the selling of materials below cost is to give customers a treat, such as a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, a massage or a lift home, for example. One would not get such things in a supermarket of course. However, giving such things is legal while selling below cost price is not. This is not logical. It is necessary to let market forces play their role. This is the objective of today's debate, along with getting lower prices.

Disadvantages exist and Senator Coghlan has touched upon these. In Britain, when competition of that magnitude came about, Senator Coghlan indicated that 40% of towns and villages were without a local shop. The Minister would have to take this into account.

I have an answer to the below-cost selling rule. It should be abolished, but in doing so the Minister should introduce a stipulation that no limits can be placed on the amount that somebody can buy. I remember years ago I sold Zip firelighters at approximately 6p below cost. People came from all around to buy these. My competitor from up the street came in with wheelbarrows to load up ten cases of Zip firelighters. It cost my business money to sell them to the competitor. My business was unwilling to put a restriction on it, so the competitor told his friends who in turn bought more firelighters until the stock was sold out in a small amount of time. A restriction might have stipulated that only two boxes of firelighters be sold to every customer. If the groceries order were abolished and full competition was allowed, the big nasty supermarkets would be allowed to undercut everybody else, but they should not be allowed to place a limit on what people can buy. A local competitor can then go to the local supermarket, irrespective of whether it is a big international supermarket, and buy all the stock because it is being sold below cost. This is one way around below-cost selling that suits both the customers and smaller traders, but does not suit the big nasty supermarket selling below cost.