More than 4,000 bags were checked by Customs officers as passengers returned from US trips between October and mid-December, according to the latest figures compiled by the Revenue Commissioners.
Last month, Customs officers were accused of turning a blind eye to shoppers returning from the US without paying VAT or duties on their purchases.
Travellers returning from the US are allowed to bring home goods worth up to €175 before they have to declare their purchases.
A Revenue spokeswoman said that 571 flights were checked by Customs officials at Dublin, Shannon and Knock airports between October 1st and December 15th.
Some 6,789 passengers were challenged by Customs officials and 4,345 bags were subsequently searched.
This resulted in the collection of just over €30,000 in VAT and duty payments.
During the same period, more than nine million cigarettes worth €3.39 million were seized and drugs with an estimated street value of €1.97 million were recovered.
However, the Customs checks were described as "too little, too late" by Isme, the small and medium businesses organisation.
Its chief executive, Mark Fielding, said that the numbers were a drop in the ocean when it was considered that up to 175,000 people went to New York alone on shopping trips in recent weeks.
This was an increase of 25,000 on the previous year. "Anything from €1,500 to €5,000 was spent on these trips."
The Comptroller and Auditor General found that just four passengers were detected by Customs officers carrying goods worth more than €175 in 2006.
Mr Fielding said he accepted that Customs officers had stepped up their activity in recent weeks but said this was because of criticism from Isme and the media spotlight on the issue.
He criticised the argument that Customs officers could either focus on drug smugglers or search people's shopping bags and said it was not an "either/or" situation: "They should be doing both."
The Revenue spokeswoman said the agency "absolutely refutes the suggestion that the Customs Service is ignoring the question of duty owing on US shopping trips".
Mr Fielding said that people needed to be educated about the knock-on effects of spending up to €5,000 per head in shops abroad.
"It's estimated that more than €1 billion was spent overseas in the run-up to Christmas so that's more than €300 million in excise duty and VAT that's not going to the exchequer."
He said that people in their imported Armani clothes would be the very people who would be tut-tutting about job losses in the coming months, yet they were not supporting Irish businesses.
Mr Fielding gave the example of a small jewellery or games shop that might have been thinking about taking on a new employee in the New Year.
"But now they are saying, 'no, we didn't have as good a Christmas as we thought we'd have. We can't do it.'"
