Households ‘hit by extra €1,100 a year for goods’

HOUSEHOLDS paid an extra €1,100 per annum for retails goods over a five-year period because of higher price mark-ups, Fine Gael claimed yesterday.

The party's deputy leader Richard Bruton said that shops, supermarkets, chemists, and pubs had hiked up their gross mark-up for goods by some 4% between 1999 and 2003, a move that added to their ultimate profit margin.

He said that it meant Irish consumers had paid a total of 1.5 billion more in the past five years, due solely to the retail trade increasing their gross margin (the difference between cost price of the product and the amount for which it is sold).