2026-04-23

I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue which has been felt in households right across Roscommon-Galway and, indeed, across the country. People are very clear about what they are experiencing. The cost of the weekly shop has risen significantly and it continues to rise. For many households, particularly those on low and middle incomes, this is not an abstract issue; it is a real and immediate pressure. Families are noticing it week to week. They are adjusting what they buy, where they shop and how much they can afford to spend. What was once routine has now become a careful calculation. We know this is not just anecdotal. Food prices have risen by over 20% in a relatively short time. That represents a very real and sustained increase in the cost of living. For lower income households the situation is even more stark. A healthy weekly shop can take up to one third of disposable incomes. When we talk about grocery prices, we are not just talking about marginal changes but we are talking about a structural shift in affordability. The core issue I raise here today is not simply that prices are rising but how those prices are being monitored and understood. We have a number of bodies with roles in this space, including the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Agri-Food Regulator. There is no single body with a clearly defined role in monitoring grocery price trends, examining retail pricing practices or providing a consistent, consumer focused view of what is happening in the market. That raises a fundamental question about whether the current framework is sufficient. If prices are rising at the pace people are experiencing, who is tracking them in a structured way? If there are issues around pricing practices, who is examining them from the perspective of the consumer? If pressures are building, where is the clear line of accountability? In rural areas such as Roscommon-Galway, this issue is particularly acute and was brought to the fore during the recent fuel crisis, which expanded into a cost-of-living issue for people in that area and many other areas. Choice can be more limited and households can be more exposed to rising costs. What assessment has been made of grocery price increases and their impact on consumers? Does the Minister of State accept there may be merit in a more clearly defined stand-alone mechanism or watchdog with the responsibility for monitoring grocery pricing, transparency and affordability from the consumer perspective?

I am grateful to the Deputy for raising this issue, one that I have absolute familiarity with having previously been a Minister of State in the Department with responsibility for retail during a period when we had 16.9% grocery inflation on the back of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which massively increased food and energy prices across western Europe. Global inflation will see grocery prices increase. At the time, we would have seen grocery stores reduce their prices on about 700 products in the interim but there was a range of different proposals suggested. The opportunity I have this afternoon, given the directness of the points raised by Deputy Daly, is to outline the existing situation. The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment is responsible for policy in relation to competition and consumer protection. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, is the independent statutory body responsible for enforcing competition law and consumer protection legislation. The CCPC is not a price-monitoring or price-regulating body. The collection, compilation and publication of official price data is a statutory function of the Central Statistics Office. Businesses in Ireland are generally free to set their own prices, provided they do so independently and in compliance with competition and consumer protection law. The CCPC has engaged with public concerns about grocery prices within its existing remit. In August 2025, it published an updated high-level analysis of the Irish grocery retail sector, updating its 2023 work. This analysis examined market concentration, entry and expansion, national and international price trends, and the profitability of major grocery retailers. The CCPC concluded that while grocery prices have risen significantly since 2021, there is no evidence of a failure of competition or of excessive pricing in the sector. The CCPC plays an active and enforcement-focused role in protecting consumers. It enforces competition and consumer protection law across the economy, including in the retail and grocery sectors, and takes action, for example, where traders mislead consumers, fail to display prices correctly, or breach pricing transparency requirements. This includes inspections, prosecutions and enforcement actions in the grocery and wider retail sectors. In parallel, the CCPC protects consumers by preventing anti-competitive outcomes that could lead to higher prices or reduced choice, including in rural areas. For example, the CCPC approved a proposed supermarket acquisition by Tesco only after the company agreed to divest an outlet in Oranmore, protecting local competition in Galway. The Central Statistics Office continues to publish detailed and independently-verified data through the consumer price index, including on food and drink prices. This data provides a transparent and authoritative basis for understanding price movements across the wider economy.

I appreciate the response but the concern remains around how this is being experienced by people on the ground. People are telling us that the value of a euro in the shopping trolley has fundamentally changed. There was a time when people could shop around. They might do a core shop in one retailer and then top up in other retailers for choice. However, we are increasingly hearing those price differences have narrowed significantly, suggesting a lack of competition in the retail sector. The sense of being able to shop strategically and save has reduced and people feel they are paying more regardless of where they go. At the same time, the evidence is clear that healthier food can be up to three times more expensive per calorie than less healthy alternatives while cheaper more processed options continue to offer more for less. People with the least resources eat the unhealthiest food and that has ramifications right throughout our health system and our State. When households are under pressure, they are not making lifestyle choices, they are making budget decisions. That brings me back to the central point. People are seeing prices rise, but they do not see who is actively tracking those increases, analysing them or holding the system to account in a clear and visible way. The question is not whether structures exist but whether they are sufficient or coherent enough for the reality that people are now facing. It has to be put in the context that this is not simply an Irish problem. This is about the lower-middle class people - people who get up for work every morning and pay for everything in this State but who are being squeezed and crushed. As Senator Teresa Costello said to me, there is no fun in their lives. That means they go out for work every day and by the time they get to the end of the week, they just about make ends meet. These are a group of people who do not want to be radicalised but are going to be radicalised. It was clear they were targeted during the recent fuel crisis. Does the Minister of State accept there is case for a more focused and visible approach to monitoring grocery pricing so consumers can have confidence that what they are experiencing is being properly examined and understood?

To be honest, I do not necessarily accept that. Perhaps this is a communications issue. As the Deputy said, the structures are there. The CCPC enforces competition and consumer protection law, and the CSO independently collects and publishes official price data through the consumer price index. This means two bodies are doing the key things the Deputy is asking for. The CCPC is not the price monitoring or price regulating body; it just enforces the law. The CSO is the price monitoring body. The Deputy is right, equally, that grocery prices are not a uniquely Irish issue. We do not perhaps have the competition in the grocery sector that I would like, but let us not forget that there were only three major grocery retailers in the country up until about ten or 15 years ago. The addition of two other grocery retailers has provided other options. When we look at consumer spending, purchasing power went up by 2.9% last year compared with the year before. This is something that has, unfortunately, bedevilled economies across Europe. Croatia and Hungary introduced price caps on groceries and that had a disastrous consequence, with a lack of affordability and availability. The left-wing Government in Spain proposed to introduce price caps, only to reach the conclusion that isolated, rural supermarkets and smaller stores would simply have to close. To get to the nub of the Deputy’s point, I do not for an instant hesitate to accept that people are very much feeling the pinch at the supermarket tills at the moment, and they are rightly concerned. The key to this is that we are in the grips of an energy crisis that leads to issues with costs and food provision. In turn, we need to make sure the systems already in place in this regard, through the activities of the CCPC and the CSO, perhaps communicate more clearly and directly to allow that level of consumer confidence to be in place and ensure people are aware that even though things are very tight, the Government has genuine plans, be it through changes to income tax rates or targeted supports and social welfare, to make sure a little bit of a break is given to what I accept is a very hard pressed part of our society.