Confidence in consumer rights

Three-quarters of Irish consumers are confident about their rights, according to a survey commissioned by the National Consumer Agency (NCA) and carried out by Amárach Research.

Confidence about consumer rights is up from 66 per cent in 2007, but the numbers of consumers willing to complain dropped to 69 per cent, from 79 per cent in 2007.

Almost six in ten complaints relate to faulty products or services that did not live up to expectations. The number of complaints relating to the restaurants and hotel category has risen from 5 per cent to 16 per cent since mid-2008.

Ann Fitzgerald, chief executive of the NCA, said: ‘‘While these figures are encouraging, there is an important distinction between understanding your rights and acting on them.

‘‘Businesses need to know if there is a problem in order to put it right. Now, more than ever, satisfying customers and building loyalty is critical to long-term survival for business.”

Irish Life raises interest rate

Irish Life has increased the interest rate on its Safe Deposit Fund, and is offering 1.75 per cent more than the European Central Bank interest rate until the end of September next year.

The fund originally guaranteed to pay a premium of 1 per cent on ECB rates until the end of this year. Irish Life’s investment manager, Roisin Walsh, said the fund had attracted more than €150 million since its launch last year.

Irish Life is marketing the product to pension investors who prefer secure assets.

‘‘When you factor in the tax relief on the investment, higher rate taxpayers get back almost €1 in tax relief for every €1 they pay into a pension plan, so it’s a very attractive offer for pension investors,” Walsh said

Residential prices fall

Asking prices for residential properties have dropped by an average of €93,000 since 2007, according to the latest figures from property website, Daft.ie.

The latest report from Daft .ie shows that asking prices for residential properties around the country have fallen by 4.7 per cent in the last three months. The national average asking price now stands at €253,000, down 27 per cent from the peak in 2007.

Prices around the country are adjusting at varying speeds. In Dublin and Meath, prices have fallen by 35 per cent and 31 per cent respectively, while prices in Kerry and Tipperary are down 20 per cent and 16 per cent.

Ronan Lyons, Daft’s economist, said: ‘‘These latest figures would suggest that the differences in asking prices regionally may be having an impact on the number of transactions.”

Lyons said Dublin had seen some of the biggest cuts in asking prices, and there was evidence that this was leading to more transactions and fewer properties remaining for sale, with the total number of properties for sale falling by over 12 per cent in the last year.

‘‘In Munster, however, where price drops have been lower, the number of properties available for sale is still rising,” he said.

PIBA calls for lending action

PIBA, the country’s largest group of independent mortgage and insurance brokers, has called on the government to ‘‘curb excessively tight lending practices by the banks’’.

‘‘The dramatic fall-off in credit points to a new hyper-restrictive attitude to mortgage provision among the very lending institutions currently in receipt of massive liquidity injections and recapitalisation measures,” said PIBA chief executive Diarmuid Kelly.

He added that these practices were endangering recovery and preventing first-time buyers from entering the mortgage market.

Kelly said mortgage provision had reached an ‘‘untenable’’ low. ‘‘Net mortgage lending dropped by €84 million in August, following a €71 million drop in July,” he said.

DoneDeal breaks 2m visits barrier

More than 20,000 new advertisements were placed last month with the online classifieds website DoneDeal.ie, with more than two million visits made to the site. DoneDeal.ie was founded in 2004 by Fred and Geraldine Karlsson, who had identified a gap in the market for an easy to use, online classified advertising service. Today, the site has close to 37,000 active advertisements. Geraldine Karlsson said: ‘‘The current economic climate very much suits the brand, as people seek an easy and safe channel to trade secondhand items and do value for money deals. Our monthly site traffic figures are very much reflective of this consumer trend, with business growth up by 400 per cent from last year.”