Business lobby group IBEC said yesterday that a number of complaints about pricing were due to rounding discrepancies and were not the result of retailers trying to overcharge.
The lobby group took the example of a bread roll which cost 10p. When converted to euro, this would cost 12.69 cents, which the retailer is entitled to round to 13 cent.
If 10 bread rolls were purchased at 10p, they would cost £1 or €1.27. However, if 10 bread rolls are bought at 13 cent, this comes to €1.30, three cent higher, leaving the customer out of pocket.
But this can work to the customer's advantage in other instances, IBEC noted.
Say the bread roll cost 12p or 15 cent. Someone buying 10 rolls would pay £1.20 or €1.52. But 10 rolls at 15 cents would cost 2 cent less at €1.50.
"There are clearly swings and roundabout, which occur when the exact rules of conversion and rounding are applied but which do not represent incorrect charging on the part of retailers," IBEC said.
Consumer Calls
The Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs said the number of calls to its euro helpline slowed to 349 yesterday, from 434 the previous day.
The calls continued to fall into three main categories: the legal tender status of the Irish pound, incorrect conversions and pricing.
Its director, Ms Carmel Foley, repeated that retailers should not be using the euro as an excuse for raising prices. But she also urged consumers to ask locally about price increases as retailers could have legitimate reasons for raising them.
A clear picture on prices, and whether businesses have taken advantage of the changeover to raise them, is unlikely to emerge until the Central Statistics Office publishes the next Consumer Price Index.
The December index, which will show if prices were raised ahead of the introduction of the single currency, is scheduled for release before January 18th, while the January index will be published next month.
Price of a cuppa
Many of the complaints about price rises to EuroWatch related to restaurants rather than shops, with the cost of a cup of coffee coming in for special mention.
However, Ms Foley cautioned that businesses were entitled to round up the price of certain products to convenient price points, provided they rounded an equal number of prices down. "The cup of coffee may have been rounded up and the cost of a doughnut rounded down."
Meanwhile, other businesses claimed they were simply putting through routine price increases.
A regular luncher at the Imperial Chinese restaurant on Dublin's Wicklow Street complained that the price of the set lunchtime menu had risen from £8.50 (€10.79) to £9.45 (€12.00). The price of a cup of coffee had also risen from 80p (€1.02) to £1.18 (€1.50).
But the restaurant's manager, Mr Stephen Tsang, said it was normal practice to introduce price increases this month and the restaurant had not raised them for two years.
He also noted that these were the only price categories to be increased and that all other prices had been converted exactly.
AIB Cheque Books
AIB's increasingly annoyed customers will be glad to hear that they should get their long-awaited euro cheque books next week.
An AIB spokesman said yesterday that they were in the post in their thousands, while the bank's printers were going "hell for leather" to get them out.
He also apologised to customers and said the bank was looking into what went wrong in its euro-planning process.
"We are not saying we didn't make a mistake here," he said. "This hasn't worked in the way we planned it and we are apologising to customers."
However, the bank is not advising customers to backdate their Irish pound cheques to December 31st, a practice being resorted to by some customers.
Jane O'Sullivan