Dublin is set to become the first Fairtrade capital in the EU, with widespread availability of the label guaranteeing fair prices to producers in the developing world.
Dublin City Council is to launch a campaign this month to achieve the status, according to Labour councillor Eric Byrne.
Sales of Fairtrade products are growing 40 per cent a year. Yesterday, a leading Irish coffee company, Insomnia Coffee Company, announced that all coffees served in its 25 outlets would be Fairtrade certified.
Fairtrade coffee now accounts for 4 per cent of the market, and its share of tea, banana, chocolate markets and other products is growing.
"This deal amounts to 2.5 million cups of coffee a year and is a good example of how Fairtrade is becoming increasingly more mainstream," said Minister of State for overseas co-operation Conor Lenihan.
Bobby Kerr, chief executive of Insomnia, said buying Fairtrade coffee, mostly from Ethiopia, would cost the company an extra 7-8 per cent, but this would not be passed on to the consumer. "Once we established the quality would not be affected, it was a no-brainer," he said.
