The Government has been urged to intervene in what is being called a price war being waged by some British newspapers against the Irish newspaper industry. National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI), the lobby group for the national newspaper titles, claimed that the "campaign intensified" this week with the reduction in price of the Irish Mirror from 45p to 25p and the Sun from 40p to 20p.

The Mirror group informed newsagents that regardless of the price cut the normal agents margin would still apply.

Yesterday, the co-ordinating director of NNI, Mr Frank Cullen, said: "These publishers are intent on gaining market share in Ireland through predatory pricing and in the absence of legislation to prevent this sort of activity, they will continue to wage war on indigenous newspapers.

"We are looking at a potentially disastrous situation where Irish newspaper publishers will not be able to compete in the market place which in turn will most certainly lead to Irish job losses".

The last Government had planned to introduce legislation outlawing below cost selling. It is believed it found difficulty in defining what exactly was meant by the term. NNI has claimed that below cost selling of newspapers is a deliberate attempt to jeopardise competitors.

Mr Cullen said NNI wanted the Government to act immediately to prevent a situation where, in the future, out newsstands may be full of only British titles.

The last official circulation figures for the Mirror in the Republic was 42,365. The Sun has sales of 75,522. The latest figure for the Star, the Irish newspaper that is in direct competition with the British tabloids, is 92,479. All figures are average sales for the six months up to December 1997.