NSAI to increase focus on inspection of retail traders

Fines can follow where measurement instruments are found to be inaccurate

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NSAI (National Standards Authority of Ireland) recently announced a new initiative that will allow NSAI Legal Metrology (LMS) inspectors to increase their focus on the inspection of instruments for measurement used by retail traders, such as taxi-meters, petrol pumps and supermarket weighing scales. Speaking at the official launch of their new headquarters in Swift Square,

Maurice Buckley, CEO of NSAI, indicated that this is just one of a series of initiatives detailed in NSAI’s forthcoming strategy that primarily focuses on enabling enterprise and protecting the consumer.

“LMS ensures instruments used for trade throughout Ireland are correct and accurate at all times,” Buckley said, “LMS…verify the weighing scales in your local supermarket so you get a kilo of potatoes when you pay for a kilo of potatoes.

“As the economy had grown over the last 10 to 20 years, the number of traders has increased enormously and NSAI are increasingly being applied to test and verify instruments as they come on the market. We are a legal enforcing body in this area and we have the authority to enter premises at any stage and demand access to the instrumentation.”

NSAI has the power to prosecute and seek fines against traders found to be non-compliant, but Buckley assured that the real threat however, was that of “reputational damage”. On a positive note “compliance is good in Ireland” said Buckley. “Our job has been made less taxing because of the high rate of compliance amongst Irish retailers and our role is to ensure our competitive consumer society stays that way.”

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