Madam, - I am aghast at the insouciance manifested by the Government's decision to rescind the Groceries Order. The ineluctable outcome of this action will be the closure of all small grocery shops throughout the country.
The process that follows will be a savage price war between Tesco and Dunnes in order to maximise market share. The consumer will benefit but only in the short term. The small shops will be unable to compete as they do not receive hello money, shelf payments, rebates or LTAs from their suppliers. They will be reduced to supplying late-night purchases of bread and milk. The margins on such products are unsustainable and closure will inevitably follow.
Left to themselves Tesco and Dunnes, the latter probably owned by Walmart or some other US conglomerate, will increase their prices to maximise profits and the consumer will lose out in the long term. The Irish grocery market will then be controlled by British and American business interests, thus affecting Irish suppliers. The net result is that there will be no shops in rural communities such as Abbeydorney whose residents will be forced to drive 12 or 15 miles to the nearest supermarket. With the increasing cost of fuel and the dwindling of fossil fuel supplies, this scenario is an obvious folly. Micheál Martin has failed to learn from other countries, including our neighbours, where large swathes of countryside are left shopless.
First the cigarettes, now the sliced pan. Can the pint be far behind? - Yours, etc,
PETER MURRAY, Abbeydorney, Co Kerry.