A new national consumer agency to be launched on Wednesday will have the power to issue on-the-spot fines to businesses that do not comply with consumer protection legislation in areas such as price display, advertising and labelling.
The new agency will also have the power to issue closure orders to businesses that continue to breach legislation covering issues such as misleading advertising and price indications, drinks price displays, food labelling regulations and product safety.
Minister for Enterprise Micheál Martin is setting up the new agency in response to a report by the Consumer Strategy Group, which will be launched on Wednesday. Details of the report were first revealed in The Irish Times last month.
However, Mr Martin has stopped short of implementing one of the group's most controversial recommendations - abolishing the Groceries Order which bans below-cost selling.
Instead, the Minister will initiate a two-month consultation period before deciding on the future of the Groceries Order.
He will be seeking submissions from groups who want the ban on below-cost selling retained. The grocers' group RGDATA have opposed the removal of the order, arguing that family grocers would not be able to compete with price-cutting of large supermarket chains.
The consumer agency will replace the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs. It has not been confirmed if the office, headed by Carmel Foley, will be subsumed into the new agency although this is thought to be likely. New legislation must be enacted for the establishment of the new body but Mr Martin is likely to announce an interim chairman of the agency on Wednesday.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern revealed the launch of the new agency in a Sunday Independent interview yesterday. Mr Martin later gave his view on RTÉ's The Week in Politics programme when he said the expanded powers of the new agency would relate to "powers of enforcement, on the spot fines . . . more severe penalties in terms of people not conforming with the legislation".
"Obviously we have to take legal advice on all that going forward in the formulation of the legislation," Mr Martin said.
He said the Consumer Strategy Group report had "strong views" and made "a cogent case" on the Groceries Order but that there would have to be a consultation period before he decided on the future of this order.
Consumer groups, business leaders and opposition politicians all welcomed the new agency yesterday.
However, IBEC, the business lobby group, said it was important that the new agency tackled rising prices in the public sector as well as the private sector.
Ciarán Fitzgerald, IBEC's sectors and trade director, said prices had fallen in the past year for goods such as food, furniture, televisions, clothing and footwear. Meanwhile, medical fees, dental fees and education charges and local authority levies such as bin charges were rising fast.
The Consumer Association of Ireland (CAI) also welcomed the news and urged the Government to ensure that the agency had the resources to do the work.
"This is very positive for consumers and it's long overdue," Dermott Jewell CAI chief executive said. The new agency would have more inspectors and an increased emphasis on enforcement so it was crucial that the funds were provided to do this extra work, Mr Jewwll said.
Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Phil Hogan said the Government had finally converted to "sensible Fine Gael policy on ending consumer rip-off".
The party has been campaigning on the issue for some time, and canvassing views from the public through its www.rip-off.ie website.
"Fine Gael has highlighted this matter many times over the last number of years and we were admonished by Government Ministers for doing so," Mr Hogan said.
