Soft drinks - Harney fails to see price of greed

Incredible is the only way to describe Tánaiste Mary Harney’s admission that she could not understand why soft drinks could be bought by publicans for 30 cent and sold over the counter for €1.20.

She must be the only person in the country to be so naive as to fail to understand the cause; it is greed and a determination by the Government to fuel it by refusing to impose any semblance of price control.

There is a serious concern, and rightly so, about the high level of alcohol consumption by young people in this country, and although she concurs that it will have major implications for our society and health services, the Tánaiste is not in favour of the Government doing anything practical about it.

She told the annual conference of the Beverage Council of Ireland (BCI) that she did not agree with their call for a reduction in the VAT rate for soft drinks from 21% to 13.5%. Such a reduction, she pointed out, would cost the Government €45 million.

Instead, she suggested that a price reduction could be achieved by a “market response to high prices”.

In other words, the consumer should shop around and not just in relation to the drinks industry.

It might help, too, if consumers were to express their dissatisfaction about high prices or bad value, and determine that they are not going to tolerate them any longer.