Consumer Rights in Ireland: Refunds, Debt, Legal Aid and Small Claims

Consumer rights in Ireland sit on two different pillars depending on what has gone wrong. If a product or service you bought is faulty, the Consumer Rights Act 2022 sets out exactly what you are owed and by when. If someone else is chasing you for money, a different set of rules controls what a debt collector or lender can do.

The single fact that decides which path applies to you is whether you are the one with the complaint or the one being pursued. A trader who will not fix, replace or refund a faulty product is a Consumer Rights Act question. A creditor calling too often, or an old debt you are not sure you still owe, is a debt collection question. Both can end up in the same place: the District Court's small claims procedure, the practical route most people use to enforce a consumer claim without hiring a solicitor.

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) publishes guidance on your rights as a shopper, but it does not investigate or resolve individual complaints. For that you deal directly with the trader, then the small claims procedure if the trader will not budge, or you look at whether you qualify for legal aid where the dispute is too complex for small claims.

Information last verified on 21 July 2026. This page presents general legal information, not legal advice.

Jurisdiction scope: This page covers consumer rights, debt collection, legal aid and the small claims procedure in the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland runs separate consumer protection and legal aid schemes and is not covered here.

Your rights when a purchase goes wrong

When a product or service you paid for is faulty, the Consumer Rights Act 2022 is the starting point. It applies to goods and digital content bought since the Act was commenced on 29 November 2022; purchases made before 28 November 2022 are still governed by the older law. Section 23 of the Act gives you two remedies at the same time rather than in sequence: a short term right to terminate the contract within 30 days of delivery, and a right to have the item repaired or replaced. If the fault is serious you do not have to accept a repair or replacement at all and can go straight to a refund, even after the 30 days have passed.

The burden of proof works in your favour early on. For the first 12 months, the law presumes the fault existed when the item was delivered, so the trader has to show otherwise. After 12 months your remedies still exist, but you carry the burden of proving the fault was already there. Sale items and second hand goods bought from a business carry exactly the same rights as full price new goods; buying from a private individual rather than a business is what actually takes a purchase outside the Act.

If you bought online, by phone, or a trader visited your home uninvited, you also get a cooling off period separate from any fault: 14 days for most distance and off premises contracts, 30 days for unsolicited doorstep sales, extended by a further 12 months if the trader never gave you the required cancellation information. Our guide to consumer rights, refunds and repairs in Ireland covers the full remedy structure, digital content and services, and what the CCPC does and does not handle when you complain.

When you are the one being chased for a debt

The rules change completely once you are on the other side of a transaction, owing money rather than being owed a repair. Ordinary persistence from a creditor is lawful, but demands for payment made so frequently that they are calculated to cause alarm, distress or humiliation are a criminal offence under section 11 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997, and a court can impose a fine of up to €2,500 on summary conviction. Since 24 March 2026 the Consumer Protection Code 2025 has also limited a regulated lender to no more than 3 unsolicited arrears telephone calls to you in any calendar month, with unanswered calls excluded from that count.

No debt collection agency is authorised or supervised by the Central Bank, and no private collector can enter your home or seize your belongings. Only a Sheriff or County Registrar acting on a court order has that power, and even then a District Court judge can only order imprisonment, up to 3 months, where wilful refusal or culpable neglect to pay is proved beyond reasonable doubt and you have no goods that could be taken instead. Most ordinary consumer debts also become statute barred 6 years after the debt arose, though a signed acknowledgement or a part payment restarts that 6 year clock. Our guide to debt collection rights in Ireland covers the harassment offence, the 2025 Code, statute barred debt and the formal routes out of unmanageable debt in more depth.

Taking a dispute to court yourself: the small claims procedure

When a trader or a business will not resolve a complaint directly, the small claims procedure is the practical way to enforce a consumer right without a solicitor. It covers claims up to €2,000 and costs €25 to lodge, either online through Courts Service Online or on paper at your local District Court office. The respondent, meaning the person or business you are claiming against, has 15 days after being served with the Notice of Claim to reply; if they do not, that silence is treated as an admission and you can move straight to judgment.

The procedure is not available for every dispute. Debt claims, personal injury, insurance disputes, hire purchase and leasing agreements, and claims against Government bodies are all excluded, though claims against a city or county council are not. Rental deposit disputes only belong in the small claims procedure where the landlord lives in the property or it is a holiday home; otherwise they go to the Residential Tenancies Board. A claim generally must be brought within 6 years, and a District Court decision can be appealed to the Circuit Court within 14 days. If your dispute is with a trader based in another EU country, the separate European Small Claims Procedure covers claims up to €5,000. See our walkthrough of the small claims procedure for the full application steps and what you can actually recover.

Getting help paying for legal advice or representation

Most consumer, debt and small claims disputes do not require a solicitor, but where a dispute is genuinely too complex for the small claims procedure, civil legal aid may fund one. Eligibility depends on disposable income under €18,000 a year and disposable capital under €100,000, excluding the home you live in. Contributions start at a minimum of €30 for legal advice, rising depending on income, with a separate minimum contribution for full legal aid, meaning representation, that starts higher and already includes the advice contribution. Section 28(9) of the Civil Legal Aid Act 1995 excludes certain matters entirely, including defamation, land disputes, licensing, conveyancing and small claims, subject to statutory exceptions.

Criminal legal aid is an entirely different scheme under the Criminal Justice (Legal Aid) Act 1962: a judge grants it in court, there are no contributions, and there are no published financial thresholds to meet. Some applicants, including certain sexual offence complainants, people defending Tusla child care applications, and applicants for domestic violence orders, pay nothing at all under either scheme. Our guide to legal aid in Ireland sets out the full eligibility test, the contribution scales, and what civil legal aid does not cover.