LEGISLATION SHOULD be introduced to oblige British supermarket chains and Irish multiples to publish their accounts and establish the level of “excessive profit taking”.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore made the call in the wake of the publication of Eurostat figures, which showed the price of food in Ireland was 29 per cent above the EU average.

“I think at a minimum we need to see what is the bottom line for the big supermarket chains,” so that “we get some idea of the extent to which these operations are taking excessive profits out of their businesses here,” he said.

The Labour leader criticised the Government’s “lack of urgency” in producing a code of practice on prices in the grocery sector, which was promised two years ago.

“The legislation requiring it to be established on a statutory basis has not been introduced and meanwhile we have this huge gap between prices in this country and the rest of the EU.”

Taoiseach Brian Cowen said that food prices had dropped considerably following Government intervention. The latest figures from the CSO showed a 6.3 per cent reduction in prices between May 2009 and 2010 compared to a 1.5 per cent increase in the UK. He expected the code of practice “perhaps by September”.

The Labour leader said “there are still huge differences in this State and the rest of Europe”. Food suppliers were being squeezed by the retail multiples and “the consumer is being screwed”.

He said “one of the problems is that we can’t really get to the bottom of the extent of profit taking particularly by the big multiples. That is because the Irish operations of UK multiples are not required to publish separate accounts for their Irish operations. And similarly privately owned multiples, family-owned multiples are not required to publish accounts.”