The Government has warned publicans that pub licensing laws will be radically liberalised if they do not stop increasing drink prices.
Government sources claim some publicans have increased the price of a pint by up to 12p since a price-freezing order was lifted last year.
At yesterday's Cabinet meeting the issue was discussed, and the Government issued a statement afterwards in an effort to halt the price rises.
The Minister for Consumer Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt, also said the Government might reinstate the price-freezing order if publicans did not stop putting up prices. However the Vintners Federation of Ireland claimed the issue was a "bottle of smoke" and he accused Mr Kitt of reacting to spurious reports.
"There are half a dozen out of 13,000 publicans who may or may not have put up prices and they're so few and far between that they're not worth talking about," said Mr Tadgh O'Sullivan, chief executive of the VFI, which represents about 6,000 publicans outside Dublin.
Government sources said the recently established commission on pub licences would be asked to accelerate its work if the publicans did not change their behaviour. "I deplore the irresponsible manner in which some publicans appear to have been behaving. Excessive prices increases of the sort that have been reported to me demonstrate the contempt in which some publicans appear to hold their customers," Mr Kitt said.