Pearse Doherty

in five years, lamb up by 52%, cheddar up by 28%.

And so it goes on and on and on, butter up by 42%.

See, people see that, Alex, and they don't see your side of it.

They just go into your shop and other shops and they experience this increase.

So you can understand the frustration of shoppers.

Okay, so that leaves you with 1% for the business.

Yeah, I'd probably do that, Alex.

I probably wouldn't eat the out-of-date beans.

that the responsibility is not on the retailer but yet the retailers take that responsibility on yeah I wouldn't like to meet you now with my tin of beans that was out of date going back in I get short shrift I mean you have to take it back don't you

Listen, looking at the reaction to this, in the UK in particular, so, I mean, the former head of, or the current chief executive of Marks & Spencer says it's completely preposterous that this would happen.

Then coming to Ireland, we have Retail Ireland saying that intervention has, in the past, has proved to cause harm.

Artificial caps distort the supply chain.

What if, though, the onus wasn't on the supermarkets and it was on the government to intervene and to pay a subvention to the producers so that the price cap could be put in place, but that it would be the government taking the hit?

Might that work?

Well, they would say they protect workers and they protect workers' rights and their living standards.

That's what they're there for.

Alex, people could say the same about you.

You know that that's what you're doing too.

So, you know, I mean, that is probably an unfair argument to make about a trade union which exists to represent their workers.

Just some of these listener comments coming in.