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THE GOVERNMENT IS failing to address the main cause behind the rising cost of living, according to Social Democrat leader Holly Cairns, who said the primary driver is ‘greedflation’.
“What started as a cost-of-living crisis has now become a cost-of-greed crisis,” she told the Dáil today during Leaders’ Questions.
“Entire industries are taking advantage of this crisis by inflating their prices to unsustainable levels. The ECB is now warning that profiteering by companies is the main driver of inflation.
“This is ‘greedflation’ plain and simple, and people are suffering as a result,” she said.
Cairns also questioned state agencies’ ability to tackle opportunist profiteering.
“The Competition and Consumer Protection commission repeatedly tells us it has no role in even monitoring price levels. The government is now planning to introduce a food regulator that will be similarly toothless,” she said.
“What are you doing to counteract the spiraling inflation and out of control costs? Will you give the proposed new regulator the powers it needs to investigate what is really happening within supply chains?” she asked.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin, who took Leaders’ Questions today, defended the government’s attempts to alleviate the financial pressure many people are under, pointing to policies aimed at providing free school books and meals as examples.
“There are very targeted measures to deal with those most in need in respect of food and respect of heating, energy and a variety of other supports. And we have introduced about eight separate cost of living lump sum payments over the last 12 months,” he said.
Martin also defended the oversight bodies’ ability to regulate price inflation.
“There are agencies and the consumer competition agency is there. The new food ombudsman regulator is not toothless, and will be there in terms of creating transparency around the issue of food prices,” he said.
Martin also blamed rising costs on the fuel crisis brought about by the war in Ukraine, as well as the hangover from supply chain shocks caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Inflation has been multifactorial, it’s not just greed inflation. There’s an element of that, without doubt, and that’s why we have a windfall tax in respect of energy companies to pull back excessive profits on the backs of the crisis, but it has been multifactorial,” he said.
Cairns, however, said that while the government’s measures were relieving some of the most acute financial strain on households, they were not addressing the primary cause of inflation and that as a result working people, not corporations, were the ones suffering the most.
“The biggest price increases have not been to luxury products. They’ve been to basics like butter, bread and pasta,” she said.
“Now the supermarkets have decided en masse to decrease the prices of milk and butter. This so called supermarket price war looks more like a phony battle of convenience. They want to give the illusion of action while continuing to clean up.
“A tiny decrease in butter and milk isn’t the answer to this.”
Meanwhile, in an example of corporations doing well, oil giant Shell made nearly $1.7 billion (€1.59 billion) more in profit than experts had expected in the first three months of the year, the company said today.
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We will own nothing, and we will be happy.
“And we have introduced about eight separate cost of living lump sum payments over the last 12 months,” he said.”
Sush now he says, didn’t we throw you lot a few euro, with an incredulous look on his face!
Yes Tánaiste, sorry Tánaiste!
They live so far above us they can’t understand I guess. Oh how I wish to see fresh faces in the Dáil, I bloody long for it!
@Chutes: Here Here….!!!!!
Everything in Tesco UK is €1.50 LOWER than we are paying here in Treasure Ireland NOT sustainable Vote with your feet.
What exactly does she want the state to do or is she just having a whinge? Producers can charge whatever they like for the goods and services which they produce, there is no obligation on consumers to consume those goods and services if they deem the prices demanded to be too high. If a state intervenes and decides that they are the ones who get to decide the prices a producer may charge, which seems to be what Cairns is calling for, then that state will quickly learn that producers are not obliged to produce goods and services either. Price controls do not work, they are the product of lazy thinking by ignorant people and lead to disastrous outcomes.
@Billy Pilgrim: the state intervenes when they tell you how much you can rent your property for in rent control areas
@John O’sullivan: good example, because as we all know, that inspired policy decision has resulted in an ever increasing supply to the rental market, and has most certainly not incentivised people with excess capacity to leave properties vacant due to the price controls! Now let’s do the same with food, sure what could possibly go wrong?
@Billy Pilgrim: There’s a functional kind of obligation to eat as far as I can make out, feed your kids, clothe and heat yourselves and on and on really.
You should put some thought into that from wherever you perch, imo.
@Billy Pilgrim: Free market economics only work where the purchaser is free not to buy. You have to buy food, shelter, fuel cloths and medicine. Competition can’t exist between suppliers of essential goods for long because who ever has a production advantage will eventually out compete or buy out the competition or rig prices to not compete with each other. In both cases they then raise prices as higj as possible as the customer of essentials must buy at any price. The free market is a great tool for pricing and improving unimportant goods but has no place dictating who can afford to eat or have shelter or a dignified life. That’s what competition laws and taxes are for. To set a ceiling on private profits to raise the floor on public welfare.
@Billy Pilgrim: I don’t doubt it. But just wondering if you can give us an example of a ‘disastrous outcome’?
@Billy Pilgrim: yes but even the biggest free markets in the world need some regulating / that’s why monopoly commissions / anti trust laws and laws against cartel pricing were introduced / Ireland is a small open economy but we need to safe guard against cartel like operations , for example insurance is mandatory , bur there are not enough choice of insurers , banking has fewer options , services like internet are limited and surprise surprise Ireland is one of the most expensive places for mortgages insurances etc , so it’s not as simplistic as saying you can’t or shouldn’t regulate to some degree , how much is a glass of wine in France , or a pint of Guinness in Dublin / how can you not see there’s something very wrong with us paying top top prices for everything
@Billy Pilgrim: Supply and demand is a theoretical construction that assumes the conditions of a perfectly competitive marketplace occupied by purely rational, self-interested actors. Monopolies, oligopolies and individual actors can distort prices and they are! According to supply and demand theory, profits should be falling with the central bank interest rate hikes but the opposite has happened, the profit to cost ratio has increased. This shows clearly that costs associated with supply issues are not the only factor in high prices. Strategic price controls have plenty of evidence supporting their effectiveness in dealing with inflation. Price controls on energy and fuel in France did not result in result in producers leaving the market. You know why? Because they are still making a huge profit. Also we have a constitution framed around the social ordering of society to the common good. The state can act to control prices for the common good. The rent price freeze came about 8 years after the start of the rental crisis, every action they government took around housing in that time was in reaction to the supply and demand model failing to produce houses.
Lidl has 2 litre Cola for 75c and Coke for 2.85. I did a taste test with some people and nobody thought there was any difference in the taste.
People need to think before they buy branded products that are over 3 times the price.
Given that the state is the biggest contributor and main beneficiary of the inflation perhaps she would like start by controlling the government’s behaviour.
2.80 for a bottle of low fat milk in a petrol station today and 2.20 for the same bottle in lidl shameful. 10euro for a bag of salt in 1 shop for water softner machine I have and 14 euro for the same bag in another shop again absolutely shameful
She is known for her impertinent attempt[s] for saying in the press that TD’s ‘Pay lip service and become ignorant when pressed for change’ [I'll assume she meant FF/FG TD's] but had the temerity to then ignore when pressed on her own article about issues she wrote about.
@JOHN: When FFFG are pressed on issues that affect society as a whole and they know they are failing at then they normally launch a personal attack on the person pressing them as a deflection. Like you just did there. Like they are doing with Paul Murphy. Because they are more concerned with their own well being than that of the people they govern. The party is more important than the people for FFFG.
Banana Republic oh know it’s too expensive.
Marie Antoinette will save us (Leo the liar)
And Pompadour Eamon Ryan
Village idiot Michael
Mary Loup the Loup with her tricolour
A pure Joke
have your say