The National Consumer Agency (NCA) is establishing a panel of voluntary consumer representatives who will be made publicly available to companies to defend consumer interests.
The chosen consumer representatives will be, as described by the NCA, from “all walks of life” and will be made available to join the boards of interested organisations to represent consumer perspectives in areas of company products and services.
A spokesperson for the NCA told The Irish Timesthat "The NCA is often asked by companies if a representative will sit on their board and offer perspectives on the consumer in relation to products and services. So the NCA have decided to build up a bank of consumer representatives based on their areas of expertise and make it available to companies via a public data base."
Applicants are asked to choose areas of interest and expertise out of a list including agriculture, arts, education, retail, health, travel, construction and financial services.
No qualification is required but applicants will be asked to choose, in order of preference, three areas in which they feel they can make the best contribution.
Panel members will be chosen next month with the panel up and running shortly after according to the NCA.
“There is no limit to the number of consumer representatives we are looking for and we expect the panel to be ready before the end of this year.”
While the NCA is facilitating the establishment of the panel, once it is established the panel's members will act in their individual capacity and will not represent the NCA or its views.
Information is available on the NCA website www.nca.ie and all applications must be received by midday on Friday 25 September, 2009.