Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 13 December 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Shoplifting: Discussion

Ms Julie Dorel:

To come back to the question on under-reporting, we estimate we have approximately 1,000 incidents per week. Although we do not consolidate the data from our independent retailers centrally we meet through retail forums, councils, and clusters on a regular basis and it is top of the agenda. We consider the 1,000 incidents per week to be quite under-reported. As Ms Buckley mentioned, we encourage all of our independent retailers to report incidents but many consider it to be an investment of time with little outcome so that is a key challenge.

We see a significant rise in underage theft. It is the fearlessness in our stores and the abusive behaviour. I will ask Mr. Dunne to give a bit more of an example of what he has experienced.