A survey revealing that Irish shoppers are being charged significantly more than their British counterparts for some goods sold in British retail chains is the latest evidence that Irish consumers are being exploited, a Fine Gael senator said today.
The party's spokesman on consumer affairs, Senator Brendan Ryan, said there was a growing body of evidence to indicate that Irish consumers were being ripped off.
The survey, which was published in the
Sunday Business Post, found that nine out of the 10 British retailers surveyed were charging Irish shoppers significantly more than consumers in Britain, up to almost 50 per cent more in some cases. Retailers such as Tesco, Argos, Top Shop and Laura Ashley were included in the survey.
Senator Ryan said the increase in the value of the euro should have meant cheaper prices for consumers when the goods were being imported from sterling and dollar areas. "Instead, as this and other surveys showed, prices of imported goods and still going up and Irish consumers are being exploited and ripped off," he said. "We are now in the situation where jobs in Irish exporting companies are under threat because of the value of the Euro, but we are not getting the price reductions that we were entitled to expect."
He called on the Government and the National Consumer Agency to take action, and urged consumers to boycott shops that fail to reduce prices.
"The Government and the Agency have to get off the fence and take action to prevent consumers from being ripped off. Retailers were quick to increase prices when the Euro was weak against Sterling and when the situation is now reversed we are entitled to see prices coming down rather than simply adding to the profits of huge multi-national corporations," he said.