Sollte die Regierung staatseigene Supermärkte einführen?
https://www.thejournal.ie/state-owned-not-for-profit-grocery-supermarket-poll-ireland-6833986-Oct2025/
Von NorthKoreanMissile7
Sollte die Regierung staatseigene Supermärkte einführen?
https://www.thejournal.ie/state-owned-not-for-profit-grocery-supermarket-poll-ireland-6833986-Oct2025/
Von NorthKoreanMissile7
43 Kommentare
State owned supermarkets are very unlikely to be any cheaper than the discounters. The profit gouging is mostly further up the chain – look at the record profits the food processors / grocery brands are making.
There are cooperative supermarkets in plenty of places around the country, where the books are entirely public and the customers can be members of the co-op, and margins are kept deliberately low. They’re really not cheap, because they don’t have any buying power. Cope chain in Donegal is one with multiple branches and there’s various other agri co-ops with supermarkets too.
The average profit margin for supermarket chains is around 4%.
PBP seem to be suggesting that they could :
1. Set up a new supermarket chain
2. Magically acquire *at least* the same level of logistics and planning expertise as companies who have been doing it for decades
3. Supply goods at lower prices
As usual, they’re talking complete shite.
Would it make products any cheaper or better value?
I’d love to see something like this, but knowing how thirsty FFG are for neoliberal bullshit they’d privatize it out to Tesco.
Unless it’s heavily subsidised, this won’t help very much as a lot of the profiteering happens further up the supply chain.
No.
The very large supermarkets operate on razor thin margins. The Government are not going to run a supermarket chain more efficiently than them. It won’t bring down costs for consumers.
We already had (and partially retain) state-owned banks and this doesn’t mean anything. Public shareholding does not a public service make.
No
Just imagine if supermarkets were run as well as the HSE
No. They are very unlikely to be cheaper. Supermarkets generally operate on relatively low margins, in spite of the absolute profit levels that get thrown around.
Now, even if we ignore the incompetence that people generally expect from state operations, a state-ran supermarket would be pressured into doing “the right thing”, for example in relation to employee benefits etc. those profit margins would be eaten into pretty quickly and we potentially have something that is not just “non-profit”, but losing money to be competitive.
Does anyone really think that my local county council or CIE-equivalent can run a grocery store more efficient than Lidl or Aldi?
Is this post just engagement bait?
I see PBP have gone full communist.
I read their alternative budget yesterday, it’s utter trash, 60bn in tax increases, but no details beyond the dribble like high earners. In effect meaning anyone earning more than 46K.
To then use that 60bn and effectively give it away to those earning under 46K.
How about a state owned non profit public transport for the good of the public,
super market margins are low as it is
Has there ever been a historical example from another country of state run supermarkets working well? I’m usually pretty big on state intervention in response to market failures, but I just can’t see how a state run supermarket is going to be able to provide a better, cheaper service than Lidl or Aldi.
God no!
Government spending codes and red tape would tie it ip in knots
Own-brand products — especially the discount retailers — are already comparatively cheap. It’s just the brands that are gouging us.
State-owned supermarkets won’t be much if any better than the current market.
No.
Where do these idiotic ideas come from?
Where do the private and public sector „compete“ in Ireland? Where is the public sector cheaper?
Why would the HSE of supermarkets be good value?
PBP say this is needed to offer a better selection of healthy foods to people who don’t have access to them. Even if you think this is a major social issue, state owned supermarkets are not the solution.
It would be far more efficient to change regulations or offer subsidies for healthy food. If people can’t access supermarkets, then expanding public transport would be a better solution.
The real reason this is proposed is because Mamdani has proposed this for New York City so PBP is just copying America. They even called them „grocery stores“ in their document.
I can imagine them being horribly depressing. Like an even more impersonal vibe that Aldi and Lidl have.
Basically a social welfare office vibe in the form of a supermarket with fucking ogres behind the tils
No, but subsiding essentials would be a great idea. Basically, have the food and stuff we need to live be subside to the point that it is dirt cheap so people dont have to struggle between having food for the week or buying one nice thing they want.
Think we should start at fully owning electric companies, the next centers and the likes
PBP are committed ideologues who think the solution to all our problems ultimately will come down to an overthrow of the system on the march to full communism. So incrementally their solutions tend to involve nationalisation, no matter the context or the problem.
Arguing with them is like arguing with a committed Christian about the idea of an afterlife.
Ues just like the state owned entities such as VHI and Electric Ireland are cheaper. This is a ridiculous idea.
No
Good holy fuck no, do you want people to starve?
What terrible fucking idea that should be left where it belongs in the 20th century Soviet Union as if I needed any more proof to affirm my belief that PBP are Commies
[PbP supermarkets of the future….](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8LtQhIQ2AE)
I think this would be a really interesting way for them to fuck something up theyve never fucked up before.
It would be more helpful to subsidise basics for people who are struggling. Milk, veg, fruit and bread. Roll out a campaign of cooking on a Budget (not that shite on Tik Tok). There used to be the Combat Poverty Agency who were brilliant
They should not have sold off utilities like electricity. Phones I’m ok with but electricity is too important and we now have the highest cost in the world. Selling off water (they 100% would have a few years later) would have been an utter disaster and I am very worried about their evasion of the idea of making a constitutional clause to protect it from privatisation. One of them suggested it in the first place.
Supermarkets… would have to think about it but would like to see govt markets for agricultural produce from Ireland. I think that we are hamstrung from doing anything like that by having such a small open economy, MNCs wouldn’t like something, it wouldn’t happen.
OTOH what we could do is seriously update our property laws. Make it illegal for any new property to be bought by a non EU citizen unless they’re employing people here/living here permanently and severely tax vulture funds, property hoarders and market speculators to force them to sell. That and properly funding public house/apartment building in needed areas, fasttracking planning for that etc that would reduce costs of living for those who need it… eventually.
Very Soviet. Your toothbrush must be green, your toilet paper single ply and spam for dinner. Perhaps just enforce consumer protection and investigate monopolistic behaviour and price fixing. Do their job like.
Hell no, I don’t trust the state at all
I’d vote for state owned construction companies.
Would there be any incentive for the public servants to get it right? Running supermarkets is a quite skilled job. Just in time delivery management, price negotiations , personnel management, marketing, financial management etc.
I’d worry that it would either lose money at a cost to tax payers or the prices would not be competitive…. Or both.
Should the taxpayer introduce tax payer funded supermarkets. You do realise the government is the taxpayer ie it’s our money ( if your a tax payer) So NO
Yes 100% great idea.
This would be similar to collective bargaining which Europe and Ireland does for drugs and medications or even similar to private co-ops.
Non-branded Essential items sold at close to cost.
Anyone who thinks this is a bad idea is just looking for problems and not solutions…
No.
The government needs to support co-ops.
First let’s tackle the national childrens hospital. We wouldn’t want the government to bite off more than they can chew.
OMG imagine the cost of building this supermarket. The bike shed, the toilet, the rack.
It’d probably cost 20 million to build one and it’d be ready by 2080!
Ugh, is this 1960s Russia