Food prices 'out of control', Dáil hears

RTÉ News​

7 hours ago

Households are being "hammered left, right, and centre" because food prices are "out of control", the Sinn Féin leader has said.
A PWC report found that 70% of Irish consumers are worried about the cost of food, Mary Lou McDonald told the Dáil.
She gave examples of increases including a hike of 54% in the cost of sugar, a 48% in the price of lamb and a 55% jump in the cost of a fillet of cod, according to CSO data.
Many households are paying €3000 more annually in the supermarket compared to 2021, Ms McDonald said.
Supermarket chains were called into Government Buildings by Minister of State Neale Richmond amid concerns about this issue.
"Was it all just bull and bluster?" she asked the Taoiseach and she urged him to introduce a cost of living package in the Budget.
The Government understands that inflation after Covid and the war in Ukraine resulted in food prices being very high, the Taoiseach said.
But he said that the inflation rate had now fallen below the 2% EU target.
The next Budget will have a focus on child poverty and housing, the Taoiseach said and he predicted wage growth of between 3% and 3.5% this year.
'People being ripped off' - Social Democrats
Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O'Callaghan has raised the high cost of food in the Dáil saying that families are spending an extra €3,000 per year on shopping bills and prices are still increasing.
He said people have suspicions that they are being ripped off but there is no way to prove that because of the lack of transparency on supermarket profits.
He said chains should be required to publish details about their profits and he called on the Government to make this a requirement for retailers.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Government interventions to ease the burden of the high cost of living had been the most significant across Europe.
Mr O'Callaghan said the Government was lifting the pay caps for top bankers and he queried what had been done on grocery prices.
Mr Martin said he acknowledged the high cost of living but he pointed to measures on tax as well as other expenditure which has been covered by the State.
Children in emergency accommodation
Labour leader Ivana Bacik has predicted that the number children in emergency accommodation will have increased when figures are published on Friday, and accused the government of "tolerating the intolerable".
She said at the end of May, 4,775 homeless children were in what she described as "an awful situation" and claimed the families had been "failed by the State and failed by this Government".
The Dublin Bay South TD said the Coalition should institute an eviction ban and back the Labour Party's legislation, published eight years ago, which would demand local authorities to prioritise the care of children.
In reply, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said more social houses had been built in the past four years than in the previous 40 years.
He said the Government was reducing the time that families were spending in emergency accommodation.
He said that an eviction ban would be "regressive in terms of supply" and make the difficult situation "much worse".
The Taoiseach said the Housing Commission had accused the Government of adopting an "interventionist approach" and this was damaging supply and exacerbating the situation.
He added that the Government is "treating this as an emergency."
Department of Housing figures released at the end of May said that 15,580 people were living in emergency accommodation during the week of 21 April to 27 April, which was an 11% increase on figures from April last year.