The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, is the statutory body responsible for the enforcement of competition and consumer law in the State.
Section 9(5) of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014 provides that the CCPC is independent in the performance of its functions, including its day-to-day operational work regarding complaints made to it and I, as Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, have no direct function in such matters.
Notwithstanding this, the CCPC have informed me of the aggregated figures for consumer and competition-related complaints in relation to gift vouchers in each of the years 2014 to 2018, that have been logged on their consumer contact line (see table).
Year
|
No. of complaints
|
2014
|
477*
|
2015
|
96
|
2016
|
182
|
2017
|
187
|
2018
|
206
|
Total
|
1148
|
*The CCPC have stated that the figure for 2014 was impacted by HMV's closure.