Prices: we still have to rely on Eddie Hobbs

EDDIE HOBBS has been calling on consumers to email Tesco and Dunnes to demand that they reduce their prices now that the Groceries Order has been repealed.

We have to rely on the ‘consumer champion’ to get prices reduced.

Employment, Trade and Industry Minister Micheál Martin claimed the scrapping of the order was “a liberating day for competition policy in Ireland”.

How could this be when people are being called on to email large food chains in order to put pressure on them to reduce prices?

Mr Martin also claimed that the Groceries Order had kept the prices of the vast majority of grocery products at an artificially high level.

Does he realise that nothing has changed since the order was repealed?

The only way to get prices down is to have Eddie Hobbs shouting about it and people emailing supermarket chains.

This is not the way to do business. Mr Martin should not be content to have the people he is elected to represent do all the hard work.

Caitriona Fitzpatrick

Marble Hall Park

Douglas Road

Cork