Analysis: In 1949 Chinese leader Chou En-lai was asked about the impact on world history of the French Revolution of 1789.
It's too early to tell," he replied.
If the end of the Groceries Order does lower food prices, we won't have to wait 160 years to find out.
But it will take more than the six months that have passed since the order's abolition last February.
The order was introduced in 1987 to deal with fears that a phenomenon known as predatory pricing would drive small retailers out of business, fears prompted by the closure in that year of supermarket HWilliams.
Its effect was to prevent retailers from passing on wholesalers' discounts from the bulk-buying of stock, a factor giving large multiples a particular advantage.
Supporters of the order - including the powerful retailers' lobby RGDATA and representatives of the food industry - saw it as a defence of the "mom and pop" store.
Its detractors saw it as a way for so-called convenience stores to prevent their customers from benefiting from discounts.
In the current inflationary environment, grocery prices are the needle in an economic haystack.
But - thanks, perhaps, to Eddie Hobbs - the order has been given a level of significance way above its relevance as an anti-inflationary measure.
The average Irish consumer spends more on alcoholic beverages than on food.
Increases in food prices have been cited by those who say the end of the order has failed to cut prices.
A recent survey conducted by Fine Gael suggested that fresh food prices had increased by 14 per cent in just one year.
"Our study reveals that the abolition of the Groceries Order has not reduced the price of food," an accompanying press release stated.
Such reactions ignore the fact that the price of most fresh food products were not actually covered by the order: fresh food needs to be quickly discounted in order to be sold as its sell-by date approaches.
It follows that the order's abolition cannot be held responsible for any increase in their price.
Neither will its abolition guarantee falls in the prices of products that are covered.
While now permitting retailers to pass on discounts, the abolition of the order does not force them to do so.
This week a report by the Consumers' Association of Ireland suggests that they have so far been stalling - food prices continue to rise several months after the order's abolition.
But in an extensive report on the order published last year by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, an interesting statistic was revealed.
Taking 10 countries in Europe with some kind of grocery order restriction and 10 without, it found that price inflation for products covered by the order was three times higher in those countries with such a restriction. That study looked at price trends over a 10-year period.
In the short term, and as far as general inflation goes, this era of rising fuel costs, climbing interest rates and soaring property prices makes the order's abolition a David up against a Goliath.