A DECISION by the Competition Authority to challenge a price freeze implemented across the State’s 5,500 pubs and the abolition of the Groceries Order has been questioned by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise.

Committee chairman Willie Penrose, Labour TD for Longford-Westmeath, said the move by the authority was not “helpful” and added that pubs in smaller communities would not survive, with consumers “the ultimate loser”.

“Only the strongest pubs will survive,” he said. “The others will be weeded out and effectively wiped out.”

Pádraig Cribben, chief executive of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, said the price freeze was an attempt to protect jobs and control the escalation of prices in pubs caused by increasing labour, wholesale and rates costs.

“It seems incongruous that attempts to stop prices increasing, while at the same time making it clear that individuals can and should compete at prices lower than that, would be challenged in the courts,” he said.

Fine Gael TD Deirdre Clune said that changes to the sale of alcohol under the Groceries Order had been negative, as consumption patterns had become more abusive. Mr Cribben said that 2008 was the first year in history when the volume of off-licence sales surpassed those recorded in pubs.

He said VAT on off-licence sales was lower and the exchequer stood to lose €100 million in revenue annually.

Changes to people’s drinking patterns had seen 1,500 pubs close, with the loss of some 9,000 jobs in the last five years, he said.