The Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) accused RTE of trivialising Tuesday's strike by showing lines of cars travelling to Newry to shop. "An RTE reporter mocked that they wanted a 'go slow' but got a five-mile traffic jam," the SWP complained. "The message was that the unpatriotic 'enemy within' were not even serious about their demands."

Mary Coughlan hit out at off-to-Newry/Derry shoppers too when she made it a choice between supporting 'Her Majesty's Government' or putting euros into local businesses to keep local jobs alive.

It was a wonderfully wry comment from the Tanaiste of the self-styled Republican Party, which supports the Belfast Agreement and our friends in the North (but obviously not at all costs).

What's wrong with going to Northern Ireland to shop? Tesco -- which shouted its support for consumers a few weeks ago -- is still charging 18pc more south of the border than north. Argos and Dunnes charge up to twice as much in the South as in the North, never mind Marks and Sparks's 20pc higher on Xmas stock.

And when you see Kerrygold's lushly pastoral ads (voiced by southern accents) be very afraid because 250g costs 45 cent more in Kerry than in Portadown. The new Xbox costs over €60 more, although the market is actually larger so, logically, prices should be lower.

Job losses have hit the retail sector down south and yes, you can pick up more bargains here now than a year ago. But the sector hasn't responded to the downturn here with anything like the competitive, entrepreneurial spirit Bill Cullen demands in The Apprentice.

Instead, there's a weird game happening which tries to sustain higher prices on the basis that more jobs will be lost if prices fall. Or as Brian Cowen put it in September, we need to 'support our own'.

'Our own' are in fact mostly transnational or global outlets who may employ 'our own', be we Irish, Poles or Chinese, but are here to make profits that won't necessarily be kept in this State. They don't disclose their profits, nor does Irish law demand it.

So, if you obey Cowen or Coughlan by shopping in Dublin, Wexford, Mullingar, Killarney -- anywhere as long as it's south -- you can't know how much of your euro goes back into the Irish economy and how much goes out. Whose 'own' are you really supporting?

Blah-blah justifications for higher prices may or may not be true. We can't tell. Certainly, local suppliers aren't gobbling up profit share because, as every farmer knows, you have to play ball with the big chains or lose business. And when the chains complain about the mandatory minimum wage, we need to keep an eyebrow raised because there's no proof that cutting it would reduce costs to consumers, rather than increase profits in Other Places Land.

Some commercial rents are higher and can't be reviewed downwards, which is manifestly unfair. But that's not enough to make consumers solely responsible for saving the economic day.

Anyway, consumers (people, in other words) have other challenges and a better-defined sense of who their own really are, according to an Irish Times survey. People are cutting back on medical and dental care, rather than on groceries, and are trying to put their families first.

If shopping in Northern Ireland saves you enough for a doctor's visit, then why not? Neither the Government nor professional organisations are encouraging GPs and dentists, for example, to reduce their charges. Visiting a GP in South Dublin costs an average €65-€70. Older people, in particular, may think twice.

Nielsen reports an increase of 25pc in southerners doing their grocery shopping in Northern Ireland, compared with last year. Brian Cowen, Mary Coughlan and the retail sector need to recognise this as some 250,000 households voting with their wheels.

Instead, Taoiseach and Tanaiste are dropping emotional bombs rather than addressing ways of showing where profits actually go (so people can know for sure) or indeed banning the no-downward-revision clauses in commercial tenancy agreements.

And so this is Christmas -- in what, only three and a half weeks? Half the country doesn't know if they'll have a job next year and the other half know they will but don't know how much their wallets will shrink.

The country is composed of those who actually have cash and those who don't. The haves are cutting back at exactly the same level as the haven't-as-much, says the same survey, so, for once, rich and poor have something in common.

The haves won't indulge in ostentatious shopping because it's not cool. They'll spend on the little things that don't sing 'bling', however -- in Dublin 6, a fashionable retailer can get away with charging €1.45 for a can of pedigree dog food. In D20, a same brand six-pack costs just over a fiver.

RTE may be doing a public service by showing the traffic jams on the road to Newry but it's not about trivialising Tuesday's strike.

It's about spotlighting the dross behind Government and the retail sector's emotive pleas to support our own -- without showing the money trail of retail turnover and profits and without challenging them or the professional classes to yield, just a little bit.

The good news is that the price of petrol is marginally lower in the south this month -- precisely 3.3 cent per litre.

Just don't drink the cheaper whiskey before you hit the road home.

- Medb Ruane

Irish Independent