Joe O'Toole (Independent)

On the impact on town centre development, I will give an example. Many people say Athlone has been ruined by the development of two huge shopping centres on both ends of the town, one in Connacht and one in Leinster, called Golden Island. The centre of town suddenly died because, as Senator Dardis said, it was too awkward to get into and there was no parking. Now, as in other parts of the country, a new approach to shopping has emerged based on bijou specialist shops where people can have a cup of coffee or walk around looking for a particular item for which they do not want to go to the shopping centre. It will be like almost all of rural France, which has the highest number of hypermarchés in Europe and where thousands of villages no longer have a boulangerie, because of lack of demand and despite de Gaulle's proclamation that there would be a breadshop in every village. In that context Senator Coghlan's argument is worth examining and developing so that town centres and villages retain such facilities rather than exist solely as residential areas.

This policy is a bottle of smoke. The Minister is right to abolish the groceries order but there will be no difference for consumers. The €1,000 will go into the coffers of Tesco and Eddie Hobbs's idea that it will go the genuine shoppers of Ireland is pie in the sky.