Our enforcement role
The National Consumer Agency is responsible for the enforcement of a wide range of consumer legislation including all enforcement aspects of the work previously carried out by the Office of the Director of Consumer Affairs (ODCA).
The legislation underpinning the Agency, the Consumer Protection Act 2007, marks the biggest reform of consumer legislation in 30 years and equips Irelandwith some of the strongest and most modern consumer protection law in the world.
This Act updates and modernises consumer law. It provides for significantly greater protection for consumers with the availability of additional and powerful enforcement options and it also provides for significant penalties for businesses found guilty of offences.
Enforcement actions
New enforcement tools available to us under this legislation include:
- Prohibition notices
- Undertakings from traders
- Compliance notices
- On-the-spot fines for offences relating to price display, and
- The ability to "name and shame" non-compliant traders
The Consumer Protection List records the enforcement actions taken by the Agency under the Consumer Protection Act. In addition, we also have the power to take prosecutions against non-compliant traders.
The Act also gives effect in Irish law to the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, which provides us with the basis for tackling a range of unfair and misleading commercial practices.
Along with the Consumer Protection Act, there are several other pieces of legislation which allow us to prosecute for breaches of consumer law such as:
- The Package Holidays and Travel Trade Act
- E-commerce regulations
- Distance and doorstep selling legislation
- Toy and product safety regulations
- Various price display orders
- Misleading advertising legislation
Learn more
Find out more about our approach to enforcement
Read an overview of our enforcement tools
Read the latest Consumer Protection List, which records the enforcement actions taken by the NCA under the Consumer Protection Act