TOPIC:

I'm not championing price competition above all, I am saying that below cost selling is actually irrelevant to price competition, if you are talking about independent off licences trying to compete with supermarkets on the price of canned beer.

We have two different business models here.

1. The independent off licence has to make a profit on the beer they sell.

2. The supermarkets are willing to make a loss on the beer they sell in order to get you in to buy other products.

1 cannot, under any circumstances, compete with 2 on price.

If you ban promotions they will simply have a regular price that is as cheap as the promotional price would have been. Effectively they run the promotions for longer and don't call them "Special Offers".

If you ban below cost selling the supermarkets will simply sell at cost price. This is still cheaper than the cost + profit the independents must charge.

This is not a battle the independent retailers can win and perpetuating the myth that cheap beer is causing problems in this country is only giving ammunition to the neo-temperance brigade.

Also, as most alcohol legislation tends to be pretty ham fisted, there would likely be unintended consequences. For instance, a ban on below cost selling would make your local publican handing a free pint to a regular illegal.

So the supermarkets keep doing what they do, the independents are no better off and the consumer is a little worse off. Great.

Completely OT, but I think the Dublin-Cork schedule is as a result of the economy, the new motorway and the elimination of the PSO grants that all airlines were getting for running internal routes.

I don't think DUB-ORK was a PSO route.

Economy may have shrunk but not from 10-15 flights a day to 1

"neo-temperance brigade", I love it <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->


Would it possible for people here to join up with the brewers and make a representation to the Minister and Dept as a joint group somehow? [size=85:eesc8gjx](or is that what this site is for?)[/size:eesc8gjx]

&amp;quot;Alan Gold Label&amp;quot;:txdtk61c wrote: Would it possible for people here to join up with the brewers and make a representation to the Minister and Dept as a joint group somehow?[/quote:txdtk61c]That's the current plan, though it'll be about the much more important issue of retail licensing for brewers in the first instance.

I'm on the fence on this one a bit, but I think some of the points made by Drinkstore are very valid.

What we're possibly looking at is the Wetherspoon-ification of craft beer in Ireland if below cost selling of beer is going to continue to be allowed in Ireland.

We've seen some similar things happening with Tesco already in the past year where the number of Irish products have been significantly reduced. Where one seller dominates the market and can dictate terms to such an extent that the margins quickly make it not worth the producers time to supply them and thus be forced to remain very small.