The Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise and Small Business has said that the cost of doing business in Ireland was responsible for the relatively high prices of groceries.
In its 90-page report on the supermarket and grocery industry, following a series of hearings throughout last year, the committee found that Irish consumers pay up to 15 per cent more for their groceries on average, when compared with their counterparts in Northern Ireland and Britain.
The committee also made a series of 14 recommendations, including a quarterly survey by the director of consumer affairs on prices in various retail outlets and chains around the country.
It also recommended that the Minister for Enterprise Micheál Martin establish a business costs group to bring about "a reduction of in business overheads".
The report found that prices in the State were between 5 per cent and 15 per cent higher compared to Northern Ireland and Britain.
The higher prices were blamed on various costs, which supermarket chains said were much higher in Ireland.
The report quoted figures from Tesco which said labour costs were 20 per cent higher here than in Britain, while rental rates rose by 35 per cent in 2004.
Higher waste-disposal costs, insurance, cleaning, security and transport were all blamed by the major retailers for the higher prices in Ireland.
The report also criticised the lack of detailed information on comparisons between Ireland and other countries.
It said the current figures, which showed Irish food and alcohol costs being up to 69 per cent above the European average, did not reflect the fact that part of the rise was due to changing consumer tastes.
The report also found that there was very heavy concentration in the retail industry, with the four largest companies accounting for 77.3 per cent of the market.
Speaking at the launch of the report, the committee's chairman, Fianna Fáil TD Donie Cassidy, also criticised Dunnes Stores, which he said had refused to make an oral presentation to the committee, unlike Tesco and Musgraves, its two rivals.
The report did note, however, that Dunnes made a written submission to the committee.
Labour enterprise spokesman Brendan Howlin said that the committee was not just concerned with price.
He said that its recommendations on keeping the retail cap and the ban on below-costs selling were also driven by social concerns that small and local shops could survive to serve people, such as the elderly and infirm, who would not be able to travel to large out-of-town centres.