Madam, - I write to express my deep disappointment at the tone and tenor of some of the recent contributions to the debate on the price of groceries in Ireland.
Your own editorial (August 13th) on the groceries order states: "Packaged food items covered by the order are invariably more expensive here than in neighbouring states". This, however, does not stand up to any rational analysis.
The Consumer Strategy Group did a shopping basket survey that remarkably included such staple weekly shop items as Bacardi rum, a battery-powered toothbrush and beer. The first two items accounted for 44 per cent of the value of the basket. The headline conclusion that Ireland was 22 per cent more expensive for food versus our "neighbouring states" was based on this. If these bizarre items were removed, then Ireland is 0.8 per cent more expensive than our European neighbours.
However, it would be correct to state that The Irish Times is at the least 50 per cent more expensive than equivalent UK newspapers. Since you are not profiteering, you would probably claim there are good reasons for your price being so much higher: in a small country volumes are much lower; this plus geographic reasons may result in higher import prices for newsprint, ink, etc.
Perhaps in common with everyone else, your operating costs are higher: utilities, insurance, transport, rent, wages and so on. It does not require a groceries order for some prices here to be higher than our neighbours.
We are justifiably proud of our record of sourcing 75 per cent of all we sell in our stores in Ireland - a policy that exposes us to the costs of doing business in Ireland.
You complain that food prices have increased by 10 per cent in the last five years, while clothing, footwear and durable prices have gone down. The Competition Authority, whose press release last week was also widely reported on in your newspaper, did a comparison of clothing and footwear over the same time period. It is patently wrong to compare food with products hugely influenced by imports from China and the East, where currency movements and primary cost reductions more than account for the decline in prices. It is well known that primary food prices in Europe have enjoyed no such decline.
The Competition Authority's John Fingleton is long on rhetoric but short on relevant facts. What is the source of his €500 saving and how does it compare with the average earnings in Ireland versus those in the rest of Europe? Why does he frequently and misleadingly compare the grocery market to Aer Lingus, a State monopoly, before the arrival of Ryanair? Has he no awareness of the number of competing food retailers, including both Aldi and Lidl, the no frills Ryanairs of European food retailing?
That most famous newspaper man, HL Mencken, once wrote that to every complex problem there is a simple solution which invariably fails. We should be careful that in this debate we don't throw away a measure that works well due to flawed research and misleading analyses. - Yours, etc,
DONAL HORGAN, Managing Director, Musgrave SuperValu Centra, Tramore Road, Cork.