'Buy nothing' day on the cards to protest at rising prices

The Consumers' Association of Ireland will decide within the next 10 days whether to follow the example of Greek consumers and organise a "buy nothing" day, in protest at rising costs.

Its chairman, Mr Michael Kilcoyne, said yesterday the boycott earlier this week had been extremely effective.

Greeks had cooked at home rather than going to restaurants and boycotted shops, hotels and the service industry in general. It had resulted in a 70 per cent drop in business.

Since the introduction of the euro the association has received an "unprecedented" number of complaints from consumers and is awaiting a report of the boycott from its Greek colleagues.

Mr Kilcoyne said the Government had clearly failed to do anything about price increases and unless it "gets its act together" to tackle huge price increases, particularly since the introduction of the euro, the association was likely to organise a boycott similar to the Greeks.

The association said the electricity price increase was "an increase on the double" because the electricity rise for businesses was being passed on to consumers, and the cost of getting an electricity connection had also risen by €250.

The Government might not have control over prices in the private sector, but its policy was affecting prices in parts of the private sector, including alcohol, he added.

Anyone wanting to open a pub had to buy an existing licence and pass that cost on to the consumer. He rejected a task force report on alcohol which recommended price increases as part of efforts to cut abuse.