The Government hopes supermarkets will agree to lower the cost of groceries over the next few weeks, according to a Minister for State.  

Representatives from the country's main supermarkets will present reports of alleged price gouging at a special meeting of the Retail Forum on Wednesday. 

Grocery price inflation reached a record 16.3% between November and January, according to research analysts Kantar.  

Minister of State for Employment Affairs and Retail Business Neale Richmond TD told Newstalk Breakfast he is looking forward to a “very frank and open discussion with retailers”. 

“We've seen estimated reports of gross reflation that's considerably higher than inflation as it is and we haven't seen grocery prices come down,” he said.  

“Even though inflation has gone down until last week, and in what seemed like a stroke of a pen, we saw butter and milk prices reduced.” 

Mr Richmond said he has no problem with businesses making a profit – but when those profits are “excessive” or "using inflation as a justification to ramp up prices”, the Government has to intervene.

Government powers

He said the Government can use the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to investigate claims of “cartels or monopoly activity”. 

He also said under the Consumer Protection Act 2007, the Government has the power to introduce price caps on certain products, although they are “reluctant” to do so.  

“Rather than going straight for the draconian legislative powers that are open to Government, we need to have this open discussion to identify genuine concerns and genuine reasons,” he said.  

Croatia and Hungary have recently introduced price caps on groceries, while the French Government held a forum similar to the Government’s upcoming meeting.  

Reducing inflation

Mr Richmond said they have to consider all the parties that might be involved in increased prices for consumers.  

“Even though prices have not come down for consumers or they've gone up steadily over the last few months, the prices haven't gone up drastically for our farmers across the country,” he said.  

Farmers previously said they “cannot sustain” the reduced prices in supermarket dairy products.  

Mr Richmond said the Government needs to work with supermarkets to prevent grocery inflation remaining higher than the national inflation.  

“Hopefully we can come out of our slate on Friday afternoon with a commitment from the supermarkets that the prices will start to come down in the next couple of weeks,” he said.  

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