The recent weakening of the pound has placed renewed pressure on Irish firms selling into Britain, according to the Irish Exporters Association (IEA).
IEA chief executive John Whelan said he was “fairly convinced that we are fighting against an orchestrated depreciation campaign in the UK”. The reason for this was, he suggested, to make British firms more competitive by reducing the cost of their products.
The response to this action had to come from Government, politically and in terms of supports for indigenous exporters, Mr Whelan said.
At 5.10pm pm the euro was trading at 92.2 pence. The euro had briefly reached as high as 93p in overnight trading. Twelve months ago sterling was trading at 79 pence to the euro.
The fall came as British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said he will meet with the United Kingdom's four top lenders to ask them to stop paying "automatic bonuses".
"There's a domestic weakness of the pound, but we also have a lot of risk aversion," said Chiara Cremonesi, a currency strategist at UniCredit in London.
"The Bank of England meeting with economists tomorrow should shed some light on the effect of the quantitative-easing measures".
Mr Whelan said most food and drink exporters fixed their priced for a period of months up to one year. Pricing decisions for key periods, such as Christmas, were “almost impossible” given the current volatility in the British currency.
He called on the Government to consider reopening a stimulus package for exporters.
Additional reporting Bloomberg