Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 129: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the position regarding the charges being raised against consumers and business; if she will report on the slow progress being made in the reduction of retail grocery and supermarket prices, which allowing for VAT and currency factors are still high compared with Northern Ireland. [41549/09]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The differential in the price of goods between this jurisdiction and Northern Ireland and the UK has been a matter of debate and concern for some time. The Government has been particularly concerned as to the impact these differentials are having on employment, business activity and consumer confidence. To this end I have been engaged with all elements of the grocery goods sector in an effort to bring greater transparency as to the reasons for the north south differential in prices and particularly as to the reasons why the benefits of the Euro's sustained appreciation in value over Sterling were not being passed on to consumers.

As part of this engagement, my Department and its Agencies have directed a series of actions within the last 12 to 18 months to bring greater transparency to this area, including National Consumer Agency Price Comparison Surveys; the Forfás Report on the Cost of Running Retail Operations in Ireland and the Competition Authority Study on the Retail-Related Import and Distribution Sector. Publication of these reports has assisted in informing the debate on why Irish consumers had not seen the full benefits of the ongoing strength of the Euro over Sterling in the prices they were paying for certain goods.

Recent price trends indicate that the north south price differential is narrowing. Indeed returns from the Central Statistics Office show that prices in Ireland are falling faster than anywhere else in the EU. Insofar as comparisons with Northern Ireland and the UK are concerned, the latest comparable figures show that retail prices fell by 6.5% in this jurisdiction in the year to September 2009, whereas prices only fell by 1.4 % in the UK for the same period. At the European level, the EU Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, which is accepted as the most appropriate measure for community wide price comparisons, shows that in the year to September 2009 there was a fall of 3% in prices in Ireland as compared with an increase in prices of 0.3% (provisional) throughout the EU as a whole. This narrowing in the differential in prices is very much to be welcomed and clearly will help the competitiveness of Irish businesses thereby helping to retain jobs, business activity and ensuring that Irish consumers get value for money.