Consumer caution justified over euro

A YEAR ago consumers were trying to come to terms with the euro.

The Consumers’ Association was keeping a watchful eye on retailers who might seek to take advantage of the changeover to a new currency by introducing price increases.

Consumer caution has been justified in some respects: the last year has seen significant increases in insurance premiums, electricity, alcohol, restaurant prices, doctors’ fees and other services, and though suppliers will argue that price increases were unrelated to the currency changeover, it seems a little too coincidental that so many waited to introduce substantial hikes.

Bucking the trend, however, is our euro shopping basket, a selection of everyday items purchased at regular intervals, in Dunnes and Tesco, since December 2001.

In Dunnes, the overall increase in our shopping bill is 1.04, or 2.75% of the total, which is more than the average rate of inflation in Europe.

In Tesco, the overall increase is 1.00, or 2.61%, which is again above the EU average .

Both increases are well below the national inflation rate of 4.6%.

Petrol prices increased by 10.3c in our sample service station in Dublin and by 6.6c in Cork, indicating a growing discrepancy in regional prices.