One of the largest sports retailers in the Republic has agreed to reissue more than 5,500 gift cards at a cost of close to €250,000 after it wrongly told customers their vouchers had expired in direct contravention of Irish law. The move by JD Sports comes after a lengthy period of engagement with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC). It followed a report in The Irish Times last January detailing how a reader’s son tried to use a gift voucher in a store only to be told it expired after 12 months, a breach of 2019 legislation which mandated that all such vouchers must last for at least five years. It subsequently emerged that thousands of gift cards sold online by JD Sports carried the wrong expiry date. The commission said that when it made contact with the retailer, the error was admitted and it offered to remedy the losses for Irish customers. While 97.5 per cent of the gift cards it sold over the period were unaffected by the breach of Irish law, JD Sports has now confirmed it will reissue 5,604 gift cards where an outstanding balance of €10 or more was cancelled after the cards were declared invalid. It said the expired value of the cards to be reissued was €246,859. They were all bought online from late 2019 to late 2025, although cards bought in December 2025 were not affected.“Ireland has stricter gift voucher rules than neighbouring jurisdictions, with a five-year minimum expiry period,” said commission chairman Brian McHugh. “This case shows why consumers need that extra time to spend gift vouchers. Customers of JD Sports lost out on almost a quarter of a million euros when their gift vouchers expired after only 12 months.”He noted the retailer had “co-operated fully with the CCPC” and said he was “glad to be able to move quickly to resolve the issue and confirm this positive outcome for consumers”.A JD Sports spokeswoman apologised and said it had already started the process of contacting customers to offer them a replacement. “Our customers are our number one priority and we recognise that on this occasion we fell short of the standards [they] rightly expect,” she said. “We’re grateful to those who brought the issue to our attention and are pleased to have worked constructively with the CCPC to resolve this for our customers.”Customers who were sold vouchers with the shorter expiry will be offered a replacement gift card for the full value of the initial purchase, regardless of how much was left on the card at the end of the first 12 months.