Hobbs calls for boycott of Dunnes

CONSUMER champion Eddie Hobbs last night called for Dunnes shoppers to boycott the store.

He called on them to switch their trade to rival store Tesco for three weeks in a bid to force Dunnes to slash its prices.

Mr Hobbs’s comments came after Tesco fired the first salvo in a supermarket price war this week by slashing the cost of 5,000 goods.

Dunnes has yet to say publicly what its response to Tesco’s price-cutting will be or whether it will lower the prices of its groceries.

Mr Hobbs said: “Tesco has put its money where its mouth is but Dunnes has done nothing and announced nothing.

“So the only way to force their hand is by Dunnes shoppers moving to Tesco.

“Dunnes is a fabulous store and I’m not suggesting otherwise, but I’m asking shoppers to move to Tesco for a few weeks so that Dunnes feels the pain of losing market share.

“That will put up pressure for price competition.”

Mr Hobbs’s remarks were made after the end of the Groceries Order in March, which kept the prices of food and household products artificially high.

Last month, a Fine Gael survey showed prices had risen since the abolition of the order instead of falling, as was widely expected.

Mr Hobbs helped to trigger Tesco’s decision to cut prices after he advised shoppers to email and ring the supermarket’s head office in Dun Laoghaire to demand discounts.

A similar plea was made to Dunnes Stores shoppers but the chain declined to make any announcement. It declined to comment again yesterday.

The Government has announced it is to hold talks with the Competition Authority in a bid to bring down prices across the supermarket sector, it emerged yesterday.

A Consumers’ Association of Ireland (CAI) survey found that some household items like sausages and frozen chips had increased in price by 4% since the Groceries Order was abolished in March.

But Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin rejected claims that the ban onbelow-cost selling was increasing prices.

“We would like to see greater competition between the supermarket and the retailers. We will be in discussions with the Competition Authority and others to see how that can be brought about,” he said. “But it is completely illogical to suggest that removing the Groceries Order causes price increases.”

The CAI survey checked the prices in July of 36 everyday products in Tesco, Superquinn, Dunnes Stores, Centra, Spar, Lidl and Aldi.

It found that most prices had increased since the last survey in July 2005, but some had come down, like butter and milk.

“Talk is the only cheap product in Ireland, and the ‘threats’ of action from our regulators are hollow,” CAI chief executive Dermot Jewell said. “We need consumer action to force realistic alternatives.”