The Government would be “reluctant” to introduce price controls for groceries, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.
Mr Varadkar said Ireland and other countries around the world did not have a “good experience” with such controls.
The Taoiseach was speaking during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Wednesday, where Labour TD Ged Nash called on Mr Varadkar to request the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to C and to examine the feasibility of price controls for basic goods.
Mr Nash said the Central Statistics Office consumer price index for March confirmed that prices grew by 7.7 per cent in that month.
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“We have passed another depressing milestone as last month marked the 18th consecutive month to see an increase of 5 per cent or more,” Mr Nash said.
The Louth TD said that in the past year food prices had risen by more than 13 per cent while companies were reporting record breaking profits for 2022.
“Prices are rising faster than incomes,” Mr Nash said. “Simply put, people have less to spend on everyday essentials. Far too many corporations, like the big supermarket chains, are involved in reaping hyper-normal profits at a time when families are struggling.”
Mr Nash also said that the Government could do what its Greek counterparts had, by organising a summit with supermarkets to address the issues around prices.
“The Greek government worked with the supermarkets in Greece to ensure price controls for 51 staples across the Greek economy,” Mr Nash said.
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Mr Varadkar said he had corresponded with the CCPC as minister for enterprise, trade and employment a few months ago, “specifically on prices at the pumps and also prices in the supermarkets”.
“When it comes to price controls, we would be reluctant to do that,” Mr Varadkar said.
“Legislation does exist that allows price controls to be imposed in certain circumstances by the minister for enterprise, trade and employment, but we don’t have a good experience with price controls in this country, and indeed around the world.
“We can control retail prices, but you can’t control wholesale prices, so you might be able to tell the small shop owner or the medium sized shop owner what they can sell groceries for, but we cannot control the price at which they buy them from the wholesale and the same thing applies to the petrol pump.
“You can control the sale price at the petrol pump but not the price at which the garage has to buy the petrol and diesel.
“That is why there is long-standing experience, both in our history as a country and in examples around the world, of supply problems, shortages and rationing where price controls have been imposed. We do not want to go down that road.”
