EU Ministers have backed a plan to keep controversial roaming charges in place until at least 2018.

It had been hoped the mobile charges, which can lead to huge phone bills, would be abolished by the end of this year.

However a watered down proposal was yesterday backed by the European Council.

The Irish Independent reports there will now be transitional measures instead, which would see consumers given a certain roaming allowance with charges then applied on anything above it.

The EC says the matter will be reviewed again in 2018.

The latest caps on roaming charges came into effect last summer. Consumers are also automatically opted into a data alert of €61.50 (including VAT) unless they have requested not to received the alert.