Eamon Scanlon (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House. With this Bill the Minister hopes to lower the cost of groceries. I hope he is successful but I am concerned for the small traders trying to compete. I come from a small town in the west and over the last ten years, notwithstanding the groceries order, I have seen eight small corner shops close. Three shops have invested very heavily just to stay in business. A Member of this House has invested over €1 million just to stay in business because of competition. Rightly so, I suppose. Standards have risen and everybody has to be at the races fully, but that costs a lot of money.

There is no doubt but that shops have improved. In small towns like mine they have been the main employers, particularly up to four or five years ago. Like Senator Leyden I would not like to see them wiped out. As he said, it is important that these small shops get a fair chance to survive and that the jobs they provide are protected.

Many speakers have mentioned the multiples such as Tesco, which are now targeting smaller towns such as Manorhamilton and Boyle with four sizes of shops down to approximately 15,000 sq ft. Multiples have massive buying and advertising power; four or five market leaders advertise at peak time on television and a small independent retailer cannot compete with that. The Minister is to beef up the Competition Authority and give it more funding but RGDATA has pointed out that in the past ten years the authority has not taken any case for predatory pricing. If that is true there is something wrong because there have been reasons for the authority to get involved and take cases. In certain other businesses there seems to be no competition.

This is not about the protection of any sector but about fair play. It is about giving indigenous Irish retailers and their suppliers, which include farmers, the chance to compete with some of the biggest retailers in Europe. Most of all, it is about local shops and communities, and keeping the latter alive. I ask the Minister to use whatever powers he has to ensure that the Competition Authority closely monitors the grocery trade in the future. If that is not done, the small operators will be wiped out. I have no doubt the Minister will ensure the trade is closely monitored and that whatever action is needed will be taken to protect very small, vulnerable communities.