Rip-off Republic made a comedy out of the Groceries Order - and the Government was the butt of the joke, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent
Having spent years dithering over whether to abolish or possibly amend the Groceries Order, the Government yesterday presented the decision as if it had been an open and shut case all along.
"Very simply the Groceries Order has acted against the interests of consumers for the past 18 years and it is now time for consumer interests to prevail," Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheál Martin declared at his press conference yesterday. "There really was no option available to the Government other than a decision to revoke the order."
The order was "hugely contrary to all the principles of better regulation . . . flawed in a whole host of ways . . . an administrative convenience with no economic rationale to support it whatsoever".
Sounds pretty bad all right. The Minister's denunciation of the Groceries Order yesterday made you wonder why the Government, so committed to deregulation and competition, had taken since 1997 to do away with it.
Of course it hasn't gone away yet. Legislation to abolish the order has yet to be produced, although Mr Martin said yesterday that this would be done quickly. The debate had gone on for long enough, he said.
The Groceries Order - the ban on the selling of packaged groceries below their wholesale invoice prices - is a piece of regulation that confers substantial advantages on a number of groups. Retailers who can pocket the off-invoice discounts they get from wholesalers, because the order prohibits them from passing them on to consumers, are one such group. Wholesalers and suppliers, including farmers, who feel the ban on below cost selling eases pressure on them from major multiples to cut their margins, are other such groups.
Smaller shops, for whom the order provides protection from competition from large multiples, are yet another beneficiary.
These are powerful lobbies with a lot to lose. It is their campaign of portraying abolition of the order as the gateway to ruin for producers and small shops, who have kept the order in place. The support they have been able to drum up among Government backbenchers is a tribute to the effectiveness of those lobbies.
The argument has gone on for years, with the scales always being tipped in favour of retaining the order. The Consumer Strategy Group recommended earlier this year that it be revoked immediately.
The Competition and Mergers Review Group did so in 1999 and the Fair Trade Commission did in 1991. The Competition Authority has done it on a number of occasions. But the most likely outcome always seemed to be the retention of the Groceries Order, possibly an amended version rather than its outright abolition.
Mr Martin kicked the issue into yet another consultation process before the summer. "You have to take on board what people have to say," he intoned, suggesting we shouldn't expect a decision any time soon.
One development seems to have tipped the argument the other way: The Eddie Hobbs Rip-Off Republic television series. Mr Martin yesterday made a point of noting that the consultation process around the order began before that television series, although even he acknowledged the role of the programme in "raising awareness of the existence of something called the Groceries Order". It raised awareness of it all right. The Rip-Off Republic programme turned the Groceries Order debate into a piece of stand-up comedy. Most crucially, the butt of the joke was the Government, attacked since the series for wasting money and for being responsible for high prices.
So, once politics resumed in September it did not take long before it became clear that the Government was going to do just one thing: Respond to the pressure, abolish the Groceries Order and remove from the Opposition an important stick with which it was beating the Coalition on an almost daily basis.
Indeed this is one of a series of announcements designed to show the Government as one of decision and action. Last week we were given the Transport Strategy, this week the Groceries Order. Childcare will be addressed very shortly - in the Government spending estimates which will be published tomorrow week and in the budget on December 7th.
These announcements are all designed to neutralise issues on which the Opposition has been scoring points. More generally, they are designed to portray the Government as decisive and determined to stand up to vested interests. This has been done skilfully. Fianna Fáil went out of its way a few weeks ago to let reporters know that a large number of backbenchers were lobbying against removing the order. Initial analysis suggested the Government was preparing the ground for retention of the order and caving in to vested interests.
But with hindsight, it is clear that another game was being played: It now seems likely that the Government was drawing attention to the opposition against the abolition of the order precisely so it could seem strong when it finally decided to abolish it. And no better Minister that Mr Martin to know how well standing up to vested interests plays with the public. There has been persistent internal Government sniping at Martin's alleged "dithering" during his days at the Department of Health. Yet in standing up to publicans and his own backbenchers when pushing through the smoking ban he earned a public image as a decisive Minister. Now he has highlighted the level of opposition from vested interests to abolishing the Groceries Order, only to stand up in public again on the side of the consumer and against vested interests.
"Does the Minister accept that he has garnered for himself in a number of departments a reputation for always being a report away from a hard decision?" Labour's Brendan Howlin asked Mr Martin earlier this year in relation to the Groceries Order debate.
The answer is clearly yes. But he is also seeking to do something about it.