Dunnes Stores has been successfully prosecuted for failing to display prices as required under the Product Prices Regulations 2002.
Dunnes pleaded guilty to 15 counts of failing to display the selling and unit price of a number of grocery items at their store in the Pavilion Shopping Centre in Swords. The offences occurred on November 30 2005 and January 5 2006.
The Judge convicted Dunnes in respect of 11 counts and fined them €359 in respect of each count, amounting to a total of €3,850. Costs of €1,210 were also awarded.
Last December, Dunnes pleaded guilty to ten counts of failing to display prices of grocery products at their Swords, South Great George's Street and North Earl Street branches. They also pleaded guilty to a breach of the Consumer Information Act.
The Director of Consumer Affairs and Chairperson of the National Consumer Agency, Ann Fitzgerald, who brought the prosecutions, said that traders have to be responsible for their own compliance with consumer legislation or face prosecution.
'Non-compliant traders do their customers a dis-service, this is not acceptable,' she said. ' Neither is it acceptable that they cause an un-level playing field by avoiding the compliance costs which law-abiding businesses incur,' she added.
