Calls for consumers to be given more powers to enforce laws and to form stronger lobby groups, were made yesterday by heads of consumer bodies.
They were speaking at a conference in Dublin, "Consumerism in Ireland: The Sleeping Giant?" to mark the launch of the second phase of Citizens First, an information programme aimed at informing Irish people about their rights as European consumers.
The programme is a joint initiative between the European Commission and the European Parliament and includes three new booklets outlining the rights of EU citizens and what to do if these rights are not readily recognised.
The guides - Buying goods and services in the single European market; Travelling in another country of the EU; and Equal rights and opportunities for men and women in the EU - can be ordered by a free-phone number: 1800 553188 or accessed on the internet at: http://citizens.eu.int. The programme will be backed by an advertising campaign.
The Minister of State for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Ms Mary Wallace, said in Europe today there were very few legal barriers to prevent people from fully participating in the life of their own country, but there was still a very real gap between law and reality.
The Director of Consumer Affairs, Mr William Fagan, said the increasing volume of consumer legislation, largely originating at European level, required a radical reappraisal of consumer protection measures. His office has had to enforce a large volume of additional European legislation without any commensurate increase in resources. The pace of reform was likely to be slow, which would in turn have an impact on the consumers of public services.
A number of measures could be considered to ease the problem of consumer protection. Consumers could be given more powers to enforce the law themselves, including measures to take a wide range of private or collective actions. The scope of various measures, for example the small claims court limit, could also be increased. More radical still would be the idea of contracting private or semi-private bodies to carry out public law enforcement.
Mr Peter Dargan, chairman of the Consumers' Association of Ireland, quoted Prof Basil Chubb as saying "our democracy is government by pressure groups", but Mr Dargan said one pressure group that was not as important as it should be was the Consumers' Association. It did not have the influence it should have.
This was no reflection on staff or on work being done, but it was lacking in political clout. It could not equal the manufacturing industry, the banks or the farmers.
"All our ills have come about because we don't have the courage to say the consumer is king," he said. Consumers had to become as important as other lobby groups. Unless consumer groups were financed and given resources, they would not have the rightful place they should have.