The Director of Consumer Affairs has warned retailers that a 20-strong team of inspectors from her office would be implementing a new law obliging retailers to display the prices of all products on sale to consumers or face fines of up to €3,000.
The law, which comes into force tomorrow, will also oblige retailers to display a unit price for all goods sold by quantity or weight.
"The new regulations mean that all goods sold by quantity must be unit priced by reference to the metric units of a kilogram and a litre so that consumers will be able to readily measure value for money when trying to decide between, for instance, a 400gm pack and a 550gm pack," Ms Carmel Foley said at Waterford Institute of Technology yesterday.
"In that situation, the equivalent price per kilo will have to be shown for both packs. Retailers will face penalty fines of up to €3,000 per offence for failure to display prices clearly in line with these new regulations."
Urging consumers to shop around and examine unit prices, Ms Foley added: "Businesses have had time to adapt their pricing systems to the new rules and from Saturday there will be no excuse for failing to comply. As ever, consumers should be vigilant and where they see price details not being displayed they should report this to my office.
"An inspectorate of 20 officers from the ODCA [Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs] will prioritise enforcement of this legislation from this weekend onwards and where there are breaches of the legislation we will not hesitate to prosecute.
"A fundamental part of consumer protection is the provision of information and, in particular, price information. Individual consumers can achieve a great deal by shopping around but we live in a relatively cash-rich and time-poor society. However, the telephone and Internet can also be useful when making price comparisons."
Ms Foley was critical of exclusive deals between colleges and banks and warned students against sticking with a bank for life, irrespective of their service and charges. "I notice here that as with other third-level colleges one particular bank \ has the right to be on campus. Why do you think they paid so much money to get on campus? Because of course they think they have you for life, once they get you as a young student.
"We are much more active going from restaurant to restaurant and shoe shop to shoe shop, but we have this dreadful paralysis and reluctance to move from financial institution to financial institution. In Ireland, we pay over the odds, particularly in our credit card interest rates."