Publicans who flout price freeze may be prosecuted

The Director of Consumer Affairs has predicted that publicans who fail to prove they are complying with the Government order to freeze drinks prices at the levels of May 15th will be prosecuted.

Ms Carmel Foley was speaking yesterday after it emerged that more than three in four publicans surveyed by her office could not produce documentation to show they had frozen prices in line with the July 6th order by the Minister of State with responsibility for consumer affairs, Mr Tom Kitt.

Of 282 bars investigated, 222 had failed by the end of last week to produce documentation, according to figures quoted in the Irish Examiner.

Ms Foley is allowing more time for pubs to comply, but said she was suspicious of some of the excuses given by publicans, including protests that they did not know what the prices were on May 15th.

However, both the Licensed Vintners' Association and the Vintners' Federation of Ireland rejected the charges, and the chief executive of the LVA, Mr Frank Fell, blamed Mr Kitt for not raising the issue of documentary proof when discussing the implementation of the order with them.

Speaking on RTE's News at One yesterday, Ms Foley said matters were at an early stage but added she had "no doubt prosecutions will result" from the investigation, which was being carried out partly as "pro-active enforcement" of the order and partly in response to customer complaints.

Conceding that fines for breaches of the order were comparatively low, she said imprisonment was an alternative. But she added the real issue was what publicans were hiding from their customers.

"Customer loyalty and good name is where the focus should be," she said.

Mr Fell said many pubs did not keep full till records, only the totals for a day's business. They could relate "verbally" what the prices were, but documentary proof was another matter.

The Labour Party accused Mr Kitt of having made a "total mess" of the price freeze and said his handling of the issue had been "a chapter of disasters".