Background
The NCA's origins can be traced to the setting up of the Consumer Strategy Group (CSG) in March 2004.
The CSG presented its report, “Making Consumers Count”, to the then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheál Martin, in April 2005. Among the report's key recommendations was the establishment of a new agency to champion consumer rights.
The NCA was set up on an interim basis in May 2005, and established on a statutory footing on May 1, 2007. Its chief executive is Ann Fitzgerald, a former chief executive of the Irish Association of Investment Managers. She also chaired the Consumer Strategy Group.
The Irish government announced in its 2009 Budget on 14 October 2008 that the NCA would be amalgamated with the Competition Authority, as part of a rationalisation programme that will reduce the number of state agencies in the country by 41.
The NCA's campaigns to date include naming and shaming retailers who are caught breaking consumer law, preventing car dealers "clocking" second-hand cars (altering vehicles' odometers), and intervention in high-profile consumer disputes including ones with NTL Ireland, Aer Lingus and MCD Promoters These interventions resulted in speedy and satisfactory resolutions to the benefit of consumers.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/consumer-agency-pulls-drug-price-survey-over-errors-1.1343496
The agency has also carried out a series of price comparison surveys between leading supermarket chains, and cross-border comparisons of grocery items in stores' branches in the Republic and Northern Ireland.
On 2 September 2008 the agency published draft guidelines for the retail sector about how they should advertise price reductions, and related matters such as how long an item needs to be on sale at a higher price before advertising it with a reduced price comparison.
In December the same year there was a nationwide withdrawal of pigmeat from retail outlets after a dioxin contamination scare. The NCA successfully campaigned for full compensation for consumers after initial reluctance by some supermarket chains to refund products that were not their own brands.
On the 18 June 2009, Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan TD for the Irish Government established a single fully integrated regulatory institution, the Central Bank of Ireland.
As part of this change, the Financial Regulator's consumer information and education role was reassigned to the National Consumer Agency.
On 16 August 2010 the NCA published its response to the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government's Review of the Retail Planning Guidelines (RPGs) Issues Paper.
Read more about this topic: National Consumer Agency
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