GUBU
An Irish woman's social, political and domestic commentary
Thursday, September 01, 2005  

Groceries Order

Some weird reporting by the IT today.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has accused the Competition Authority of basing its case against the controversial Groceries Order "largely on assumptions".

....The CSO stressed yesterday that it had no opinion on whether the Groceries Order was scrapped. However, the case made by the Competition Authority was "based largely on assumptions".

...However, Fine Gael TD Phil Hogan told the committee (Oireactas Enterprise Committeee) it was clear that statistics compiled by the CSO had been "managed" by the authority.

Kieran Walsh, of the CSO, told Mr Hogan that while the CSO had supplied statistical information on a wide range of grocery prices, the Competition Authority had chosen to focus on just a selection. The effect of this was to make inflation appear more severe on goods covered by the Groceries Order.

Donal Garvey, director general of the CSO, said while it would not be appropriate to criticise another body's work, certain tables and comparisons in the authority submission were not comparing like with like.

While he stressed it was not the role of the CSO to become involved in controversy in relation to another body's use of statistical information, he said assumptions had been involved in making the Competition Authority's case. Mr Garvey said the authority takes prices for June of each year, whereas the CSO takes the overall 12-monthly average.


But further down in the article see this quote from the CSO guy:

"But the basic story is the same . . . Over the 18-year period inflation in the items covered by the Groceries Order was about 9 per cent higher than the other items not covered".

Well what's the problem then? The CA used slightly different figures, but if they both agree that Groceries Order items are dearer where is the story?

posted by Sarah | 15:01 0 comments
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