Public still has euro reservations

A YEAR on from taking on board a gleaming new currency, the public still has reservations about the euro.

On the face of it, few countries have accepted the change to the new money quite so readily as Ireland.

Surveys consistently show that of all 12 States now in the eurozone, Ireland has registered some of the highest satisfaction ratings.

And recent figures from the European Commission indicated the Republic's population is the most likely in the EU to "think in euro" when making purchases at home or abroad.

Nearly 80% of the public consider themselves "very happy or quite happy" that the new-look notes and coins have become a fact of shopping and business life.

And yet, there are persistent doubts. The same EC statistics highlighted more than three-quarters of people expressing the belief that euro conversions were calculated to their detriment.

Consumer representative groups have gone on record to insist that despite pre-conversion assurances to the contrary and official measures to head it off, the euro-linked price-rise factor is now a reality in Ireland. In a bid to prevent that happening, authorities unlike some other eurozone countries introduced the complete range of coins when the euro made its entrance last January.

This means that the average Irish pocket or purse contains a lot of the tiny and near-worthless one and two cent coins, capable of buying nothing on their own. This was done to prevent retailers rounding-up the price of goods when converting from the now-redundant punt, and claiming that they had no choice because of the non-existence of small euro coins.

But it has not worked out that way, price surveys suggest, as costs appear to have headed upwards and boosted the country's already too-high inflation rate at the same time.

Even the Government's Forfás agency found doctors, restaurants and hairdressers had all raised their prices sharply during the euro changeover.

And the position has not improved since that time. "If anything, things are worse," according to Consumers' Association of Ireland chief executive Dermot Jewell.

And consumers have been able to compare prices when travelling in other parts of Europe realising just how expensive is the country where they live.

Radio phone-in programmes were deluged with calls from disgruntled`holidaymakers who went to the Continent last summer and received a short, sharp signal about the cost of living back home.

Some of the first euro notes and, to make a point, Belgian coins were used by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in his local newsagent's shop hours after the currency first appeared. But until the prices position is resolved in the Republic, suspicions about the euro's relationship to inflation will remain.