Retailer admits breaches of consumer law over ‘Made in Pakistan’ tags on goods in Kerry shops.

QUILLS Retail Ltd has assured The Southern Star that breaches of consumer protection law at its Kerry outlets have not occurred at its stores in Bantry and Glengarriff.

The company, which trades as Quills Woollen Market, admitted two counts of breaching consumer protection law at its shops in Killarney and Kenmare at Killarney District Court on Tuesday.

The court heard that ‘Ring of Kerry’ and ‘Killarney Ireland’ sweatshirts had their original ‘Made in Pakistan’ labels cut off and tags added to suggest they were made in Ireland.

The case was taken by the Consumer and Competition Protection Commission (CCPC) and a guilty plea was entered on two of the summonses.

Director Padraig Quill Jnr, who was in court for the hearing, spoke to this newspaper afterwards to clarify the position regarding the two West Cork stores.

He said: ‘The products that are in question aren’t for sale in Bantry or Glengarriff, and the CCPC did visit Bantry and Glengarriff as a routine check by them in this part of the country. They did a full check in Killarney, full check in Kenmare, also in Sneem.

‘Out of all the products that was the only issue they found in the stores. So it was wrong, we admitted it was wrong at the time, and we rectified it straight away.’

CCPC inspectors found that hooded sweatshirts with Quills-branded swing labels that said ‘Made in Ireland’ were in fact made in Pakistan.

The CCPC officers identified instances where the original care labels showing the country of origin appeared to be tampered with, as well as examples that still had the original label showing the country of origin as Pakistan, not Ireland.

The court heard Mr Quill emailed the CCPC in January, accepting responsibility, and the company had no previous convictions.

Quills’ solicitor Mr O’Connell told the court that a mistake had been made in furnishing instructions to the manufacturer of the tags which should have said designed in Ireland and not made in Ireland.

Under the Consumer Protection Act 2007, it is an offence for a trader to provide false or misleading information that could cause a consumer to make a transactional decision they would not otherwise make. This includes information relating to the geographical or commercial origin of a product.

Judge David Waters fined the retailer €500 and ordered it to pay €1,000 towards the CCPC’s costs, noting that this was a ‘deliberate attempt to deceive buyers’.

Quills operates several retail and gift stores, selling Irish clothing, homeware, gifts and jewellery which is popular with overseas tourists.

Commenting on the case, CCPC chair Brian McHugh said the actions of Quills were ‘simply indefensible’.

‘This behaviour damages competition between businesses selling Irish crafts and could also impact the reputations of both Ireland and Kerry as high-quality tourist destinations,’ he added.