WHAT'S THE STORY WITH BANNING CREDIT CARD CHARGES?AT THE BEGINNING of last summer Irish consumers were given a little bit of hope that one of the more widely despised charges they had regularly been forced to pay over the preceding decade was about to be made illegal.

In May, Minister for Enterprise Micheál Martin, ushered the long-anticipated Consumer Protection Act (CPA) through the Dáil; and one of the key elements of the new law was a ban on traders hitting people with extra charges depending on how they chose to pay.

The ban, when implemented, would stop businesses penalising their customers for using credit cards to make bookings (Ryanair) or for paying by direct debit (Quinn Insurance) or for not paying by direct debit (NTL).

Delight at the surprise inclusion of a particularly consumer friendly clause in the bill was tempered, however, when it became clear that Martin had decided against introducing the ban immediately after fierce lobbying from the travel industry and certain operators from within the telecommunications sector.

Instead, the minister decided to grant extra time to assess the impact of the move and to give the travel trade in particular a period of transition in which to prepare for the change. Lobby groups pointed out, reasonably enough, that many travel agents had quoted prices and taken deposits for holidays last summer on the understanding that they could charge extra for credit card payments.

The Irish Travel Agents' Association (ITAA) has fought vociferously against the ban and has been most vocal in pointing out that the handling of credit card payments is seven times more expensive than debit cards. It says surcharges are levied on the basis of fees of up to 1.5 per cent that have to be paid to credit card companies for the use of their facilities and claims that small operators are going to be severely affected by the surcharge ban.

And so, at the beginning of last summer, the consultative period got underway with the promise that it would be done and dusted by the autumn. It wasn't, but consumers who have long since grown weary waiting for the conclusion of the consultation will be pleased to learn that the end is nigh.

FEW PEOPLE WILL miss credit card surcharges if they are banned. In calling for their removal, the Consumer Association of Ireland has dubbed them "anti-consumer" and "discriminatory", a feeling shared by many Pricewatch readers. Recently, one contacted us after being charged €10 for renting a car using their credit card even though no facility to pay with cash existed.

Another reader complained when he was asked for a surcharge of 3 per cent or €120 after he had booked holiday tickets costing €4,000. And we get frequent complaints about Ticketmaster, Ryanair, Aer Lingus, NTL and dozens of other companies who charge people extra for paying using credit cards or by other methods which are deemed inconvenient.

It is estimated they are costing Irish consumers tens, if not hundreds of millions of euro every year. The surcharge splurge began when agreement at EU level was reached over 10 years ago gave certain companies, whose primary business was the sale of tickets, the right to impose a surcharge on people who used credit cards.

Companies were quick to get on board this gravy train and almost overnight it became the norm for concert and plane tickets and holidays to attract a levy of anywhere between one and five per cent.

Many subsequently introduced the risible practice of levying debit and credit card surcharges and administration fees per ticket and not per booking. Thus, a party of six travelling to and from London with Ryanair ends up paying €72 because they book with a credit card - the airline also charges people who use debit cards. A group of four people who booked tickets to see Bruce Springsteen later this month through Ticketmaster will have paid nearly €25 for the single booking to be processed.

The many critics of the surcharges point out that the vast majority of retailers are also hit with such fees but absorb them as a cost of doing business - except for the discount retailers Aldi and Lidl who took a business decision not to accept credit cards because they'd rather not pay the fees associated with them - and wonder why travel agents and airlines can't do likewise.

They point out that companies who take credit card bookings - particularly those who almost exclusively take credit card bookings - make significant savings because they don't have to employ people to take cash and process it and also save money on insurance costs. And there is the undeniable fact that many people use credit cards for holidays which they otherwise could not afford so travel agents (and airlines and ticket traders) quite frequently benefit from business which they would otherwise not get, something which should compensate them for any fees they have to pay to the credit card companies.

Micheál Martin promised the consultation process would conclude by last autumn but, as the curtain fell on 2007, there was still no sign of the ban being implemented and up to the time of writing there was still no sign of white smoke from the Department of Enterprise.

LAST WEEK PRICEWATCH visited the Citizens Information Board's website (www.citizensinformation.ie) in search of an update. "The [Consumer Protection Act] has been fully implemented apart from Sections 48 and 49 [the sections dealing with the prohibition of credit card surcharges] which it is intended to implement later in 2007," the website says. We also contacted the consumer hotline of the National Consumer Agency, which itself was set up under the CPA, but staff manning the phonelines were unable to say when consumers could expect relief from the surcharges.

Some light was shed on what had happened to the consultative process in the response Martin gave to a written question on April 2nd from Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar. He asked when the credit card surcharge provision would be introduced and was told that "almost 50 submissions were received in response to the consultation process". Martin said the responses had given "rise to a number of complex matters which require careful consideration". He said the he hoped to "conclude consideration of these issues within the next few weeks". And that was that.

A spokesman for the department assured Pricewatch last week that we could expect news on the surcharge ban "very soon", although what that means is anyone's guess.