Rollercoaster ride for consumers

A weakening pound led to a widening gap between prices North and South, and, as rip-off refugees flooded across the Border, the calls to patriotism from rattled politicians, most notably Brian Lenihan, grew louder .

While recession loomed large throughout the year, it wasn't all bad news. The global credit crunch and the downturn saw interest rates fall by 1.75 per cent between September and December, which saved those with an average mortgage of €300,000 in excess of €300 a month, assuming their bank passed on the rate cuts in full.

The dregs of the Christmas 2007 champagne had barely gone flat when consumers received the first bad news of 2008. On January 3rd the price of a barrel of crude oil finally reached the milestone mark of $100 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. By July the price had climbed to $147 and experts were saying that it would not be long before $200 would be breached. They were wrong. From the beginning of August the price of a barrel dropped almost as quickly as it had climbed, and by the end of the year it cost less than $50. A litre of petrol on many forecourts fell below €1 for the first time in more than three years.

From a consumer perspective, the big story of the year was the widening gulf between prices north and south of the Border. Because many retailers with operations in both jurisdictions price their products in both sterling and euro, it became increasingly obvious to even the most casual shopper that something was wrong. Hundreds of Pricewatch readers contacted us over the course of the year to complain about the discrepancies in Dunnes Stores, Tesco, Debenhams and scores of other shops.

Brian Cowen was barely a day in the Taoiseach's chair when he was picked up by the Dáil microphones swearing in a comment to his new Minister for Enterprise, Mary Coughlan. After a Dáil debate about the failure of retailers to pass on savings to Irish shoppers, Cowen was heard saying: "Bring in those people and get a handle on it. You know, all those f***ers."

SEVERAL EXHAUSTIVE National Consumer Agency (NCA) surveys comparing grocery prices between Ireland's multiples, symbol groups, discounters and independent shops were published throughout the year. The surveys showed there was virtually no price difference between the State's biggest supermarkets. One study showed that, for a basket of more than 60 items, just 35 cent separated Tesco and Dunnes Stores. The discount stores Aldi and Lidl were significantly cheaper and the NCA

estimated that people could save upwards of 30 per cent by doing their weekly shopping either store.

People were listening: a subsequent study carried out by the agency found that almost a third of Irish consumers had changed their grocery shopping habits since the beginning of the year, with 61 per cent of them opting to do at least some of their weekly shop in Lidl, and 54 per cent favouring Aldi.

Tesco started an unseemly spat when it launched what it described as a €100 million price-cutting campaign aimed at stopping its customers switching to the discount retailers. The campaign bundled together 1,000 items under a "Cash Saver" range and the retail giant promised that its prices wouldn't "be beaten by anyone". Within 48 hours Lidl hit back by launching an aggressive advertising campaign urging consumers not to spend their "cash on trash", which was how it described some of the products in the new Tesco range.

THE YEAR WAS bookended by surveys showing what an expensive country we live in. In January it was revealed that Ireland had the highest prices in Europe after Denmark. A Eurostat report entitled Consumers in Europeshowed Irish people were paying an extra 23 per cent for their goods and services compared to the average person in the EU.

In December it was reported that Ireland was the fourth-dearest place in the world to live and shop. The survey, by cost comparison website PriceRunner.co.uk, found that, of the 23 countries surveyed, Ireland was the most expensive for condoms and ranked in the top five for other products such as vodka, bus tickets, Coca-Cola, takeaway coffee and Nintendo's Wii.

While pork was plastered all over the pages of the country's newspapers as the curtain came down on 2008, chickens were making all the running in the first half of the year. Celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall led a campaign backed by the RSPCA urging supermarkets to stop selling cheap chicken meat from birds reared in poor conditions by the end of 2010.

Forget the widows of west African dictators and their suitcases of diamonds, or the surprising Spanish lottery wins - the online scams of 2008 were a lot less elaborate. Scammers took to posting bogus ads on legitimate websites offering non-existent cars and concert tickets at knock-down prices.

A number of people contacted Pricewatch throughout the year with first-hand experience of this particular kind of scam; one reader came within hours of being taken for nearly €4,000; another lost more than €300 after she was conned by a fraudster pretending to have Kings of Leon tickets to sell.