Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for attending to address this matter and to hear my concerns. I wish to ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation whether plans are in place to provide stronger legislation to prevent multinational retailers inflating their Irish prices in comparison to their UK prices. It is my belief that the price discrepancies are fundamentally unfair and poor corporate practice. In both the short and long term, they are damaging to our economy, as each euro that is taken out of circulation in terms of disposable income is, in effect, a euro that will not be spent elsewhere. That is in addition to the obvious difficulties created for retailers who are losing out on business to the UK in circumstances where the same product can be bought at a much lesser price there even with the cost of transporting it. There is a knock-on effect for jobs in this country.

I am in favour of open markets and competition and yet with such consistent price increases across so many retailers in this country relative to the UK, increases which cannot simply be discounted by a disparity in labour costs or freight costs, I cannot help but wonder whether competition is working as fully and effectively as it should. I have written to the Consumer Association of Ireland and to the various retailers who were originally highlighted by a journalist who did some good work for The Sunday Business Post approximately two weeks ago on the issue. As yet, I have received no reply. There is no compulsion on them to reply to me. This is a serious problem which is worthy of the Minister?s time and attention. I would be grateful to hear whether there are plans to deal with the problem.