Rip Off Republic - Episode #2 - review

A tad disappointing I think. Some of the examples were a bit odd like comparing the SA price of film to the Irish price.
Personally I find pub prices too high & don't frequent them too often but I think Eddies analysis last night was flawed in that it didn't show the whole picture.
Overall all the arguments were made about pub prices but I think it was how it was put together that disappointed me.

What did you all think?

(BTW I feel we've discussed Eddies background enough & would like to keep this discussion to the actual program thx.all !!)

I think it is astonishing and great the way RTE has actually allowed a programme which slates the Government so much. It's described as "RTE Factual". It should be RTE Polemic.

In fact, it could also be renamed - Start Your Own Business. Where you see an alleged rip-off, then that means that there is a great business opportunity to be exploited.

Last week, we learned that we could buy cement in Germany for €45, pay transport costs of €10, and then sell it here for €85. There are no import controls, so what are we all waiting for? Let's stop complaining about rip-off Ireland and get in on the act.

Last night, we all learned that the restaurant business was really profitable. I would like to see a proper study of restaurants in Ireland. Maybe identify around 20 restaurants setting up around now and see how long they last and how profitable they are.

Eddie was very seriously incorrect in his analysis of the bottle of wine. He either doesn't understand how VAT works, or oversimplified it to a ridiculous extent that it was completely misleading it. He also got his mark-ups wrong. He said, that the mark-up was 340%. The correct mark-up, again in the example he gave, was 240%.

What worries me is that if he gets these details so badly wrong, I don't have confidence in the other numbers he quotes.

But the viewers won't worry about this. We believe that we are being ripped off and Eddie has reinforced that view.

Brendan

I mentioned on an earlier thread about the 3 shops in a small village, they are very expensive and offer a poor service. There are no restrictions on new entrants to the shop market.

Anyway my point is that new pub licences will not mean lower prices. If i open a new pub I will spend so much on construction costs, fit outs, advertising, mortgage etc. etc. I will not be able to undercut the competition.

Brendan, I'm surprised that you seem to be nit picking bits from the show to back up an argument against it? Eddie never said that restaurants were really profitable - in fact I think if you watched it you would see that he said that any restauranter would tell you that they only made 3 cent profit for each euro they take in - not a big margin by any means. What he did state was that they made a huge profit on wine sales - and I think he pointed out exactly why he believed that - do you have facts to show that he was wrong on this? Was he wrong in stating that the excise per bottle is €2.05? Why not point out exactly what he stated that was seriously incorrect - I'm curious!

I thought the main thrust of last nights show was that the government put a halt to Michael Mac's cafe-bar licenses. I thought at the time that this was a disgrace personally. Was is the situation with the cafe-bar licenses now anyway ? Are they dead in the water ?

I think eddie is spot on. He is hitting the nail on the head. This country is being run by vested interests. The vested intersts try and confuse the public with jargon in order to cloud the issue. He was very effective in shooting down the publicans argument that more pub licences would cause more alcoholism. I think it is the first time I have seen politicians really ridiculed and exposed since scrap saturday. It seems that competition is OK when the lowly manufacturing jobs are being lost to China but when it affects publicans, pharmacists or lawyers then the politicians row in to protect their friends.

Brendan said:

I think it is astonishing the way RTE has actually allowed a programme which slates the Government so much. It's described as "RTE Factual". It should be RTE Polemic.

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This is exactly the point I made last week, or two weeks ago. It is basically Eddie v. the government, but sure why not. It's better than bloody 'Celebrity' You're a Star, or whatever that muck that was on all last week was.

But I think the cafe bar piece was well done-ridiculous pandering to vested interests by the government.

On the subject of pubs, yes the prices are generally high, but I tend to try and avoid the more 'trendy' places that charge over the odds for the same crap you get in most of the taps over here. Or I buy beers on promotion on my local off licence.

What really annoys me though (sorry if this is OT, but I think it has some relevance) is when pubs put up their prices for certain events, the most obvious example is for the Six Nations, when Ingerland come to Dublin. Now, I know that pubs can charge whatever they want as long as they display their prices, but this is profiteering at its worst/best. How can you justify raising prices when demand is higher, and you know you are going to have a bumper day as you will sell so much in quantity terms anyway? Do pubs have higher costs on these days? I'm sure they do (extra staff, extra security, extra glass breakage etc.), but I would imagine that these costs would be more than offset by the huge volumes achieved over the course of the day.

Why must publicans take the piss? If it was such an unprofitable business, we wouldn't have pubs in Dublin changing hands for millions of euro on a regular basis. I don't see much evidence of pubs in Dublin going to the wall due to the smoking ban? If margins are reduced, tough. The governemnt are constantly finding ways to reduce consumers margins (through indirect taxes), so why shouldn't they do the same to business? Find some way of attracting customers other than the promise of a smoke filled atmosphere. Surely less staff are needed to collect and empty ashtrays? That should cut your costs slightly. Start offering more food-people will be more willing to eat it in a clean environment.

Rant over .

Hi Ceist

I don't regard it as nit-picking at all! The figures which I could check were just plain wrong. To me, that is serious.

I didn't give the figures as I thought that the details would bore people, but here you are as you asked for them:

Producer's cost 2.05
Transport from France .4
Excise duty 2.05
Distributor's cost 1.35
VAT 1.23
Total cost to restraurant 7.08
Mark-up = profit 16.92
Selling price 24.00

Unless the restaurant business operates differently from all the other businesses with which I am familiar, the VAT is charged on the selling price and so should be €4.16 ( 24*21/121)

Assuming that my understanding of VAT is wrong and that Eddie's is correct, his calculation of mark-up is incorrect anyway. 16.92 is 240% of 7.08 and not 340%.

If my understanding of VAT is correct, then the correct figures for profit are as follows:

Producer's cost 2.05
Transport from France .4
Excise duty 2.05
Distributor's cost 1.35
VAT 0
Total cost to restraurant 5.85

Profit 13.98

Net selling price 19.83


This is not nit-picking. He spent a lot of time on this and appears to me to have got it completely wrong.

Why is this important? There are many rip-offs in Ireland but if we label everything a rip-off, we will be unable to focus on the real rip-offs.

Brendan

Looking back, Minister Martin had some neck bringing in the smoking ban. I fully supported it and while he did get a lot of abuse from publicans, God only knows how much pressure was put on him by his own party members and other vested interests.
And then I thanked him by sending him a nappy.....

Michael MacDowell's cafe-bar venture was probably seen as a step too far and was forcibly quashed.

I think it is very easy to criticise what Eddie is doing. What is really important is that the message is finally getting out, to a wider arena, that this country is still run on a "who you know" basis, where vested interests get the final say in many areas.

Just to clarify my original point where I thought it was astonishing that RTE allowed this programme. I have edited this to make the point that it is astonishing and great that they allowed this programme.

The RTE legal team is usually very careful about any criticisms. It's unusual to see the likes of Musgraves named in an RTE programme.

On another issue, what is the story with pub licenses? Has it not changed recently? Can I not go down the country and buy a pub license for €180k and open a pub in Dublin with it? The total number of pub licenses in Ireland is limited, but I don't think that there is any limit on the number of pubs in Dublin.

Brendan

I quite enjoyed the programme, but there seemed to be a lot of sensationalist price comparisons, no 'balance' from the publicans or other businesses, and there was nothing telling you how you could get around the high prices.

Haircuts are a particular annoyance of mine, as I have short hair and need to get it cut every two months or so to keep it looking as I wish. The last two times I paid €25 for a haircut, but wasn't very happy so I'll have to keep looking. However, the last time I paid for a visit to a hairdresser, it was €43, nearly two years ago, and I haven't been to a regular hairdresser since, I just can't afford it!!

I would like if Eddie would stop only complaining and start coming up with solutions!!!

What really annoys me though (sorry if this is OT, but I think it has some relevance) is when pubs put up their prices for certain events, the most obvious example is for the Six Nations, when Ingerland come to Dublin.

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Hear hear !

we wouldn't have pubs in Dublin changing hands for millions of euro on a regular basis. I don't see much evidence of pubs in Dublin going to the wall due to the smoking ban?

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In the interest of balance a pub in Camden street was recently sold for a difference of 800k higher than what they paid three years ago. They put in a least 1 million in doing it up and the current turnover is nearly halved. My heart bleeds but it should be pointed out. Of course we should also point out that the prices on takeover went up 20c a pint and are 40c a pint dearer now so Eddie's call aboyt publicans reaction to drop in turnover was to inbcrease prices rather than drop them is a reasonable one.

terrysgirl33 said:

no 'balance' from the publicans or other businesses,

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Given the fact that the publicans have their own organisation with their own media people, who no doubt are currently preparing their response to Eddie personally (as some people are trying to do here), or to the content of the show, it's about time someone took the time to present nationally the plight of the consumer. We only ever hear the professional responses from the publicans, IBEC etc.

If our Consumers Assocation of Ireland had more teeth, we wouldn't need a show like this to open our eyes or to make others aware of what's going on. We should be hearing this stuff every week from Dermott Jewell and his crew.

terrysgirl33 said:

there was nothing telling you how you could get around the high prices.

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If memory serves, he did highlight the futility of trying to shop around when out buying a pint!!

Thanks for the breakdown Brendan, I wasn't aware of that and it is good to point out where Eddie is mistaken or just plain wrong with his figures. My point about nit picking was that you claimed that Eddie was showing that restaurants and used the wine example to prove this - whereas he never said this, just that the wine markup was excessive. Anyways, must say I enjoyed the first show but found nothing in last nights show really that I didn't really know already - but agree with him about the cafe bars - surely the punters should be given a choice.

Brendan said:

On another issue, what is the story with pub licenses? Has it not changed recently? Can I not go down the country and buy a pub license for €180k and open a pub in Dublin with it? The total number of pub licenses in Ireland is limited, but I don't think that there is any limit on the number of pubs in Dublin.

Brendan

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I believe this is the case now, licenses are transferrable anywhere.

However we could also argue that this is a bad thing.

I know a village which once had 2 pubs but both have now been closed. So the population are being forced to drink and drive. More deaths, more accidents, more burden on the hospitals, more expense for you and me, higher taxes, more ripoffs.

terrysgirl33 said:

I would like if Eddie would stop only complaining and start coming up with solutions!!!

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Why should it be up to Eddie to come up with solutions? What influence does he have on the price of a haircut?

Eddie is highlighting some of the reasons why we have high prices/rip-offs (call them what you will). It's up to consumers to decide what they want to do:

• shop around
• forgo whatever it is they feel is a rip-off
• lobby the government to take action against retailers
• vote the current government out of office in the next election and hope that a new governmeny will be pro-consumer and look at the taxes on goods and services

Last nights show was good, but probably not up to the standard of the first show .... hmmm (as he incessantly said himself!!)

Drink has been a fairly transparent rip-off with donkeys years, thats why there was no great eye openers last night.
I think that there was one net development out of the McDowell thing which was that all restaurants are or are to be allowed to sell drink (all drink, not just wine) with meals. Surely this is a cafe bar by another name for those who want to take that opportunity. A "friends" style restuarant with comfy couches, punters quaffing their tipple while surrounding the 1 plate of chips (Spanish student like !!). I think this was missed.
Dont think there was any point in abusing McDowell re how the deal went down, wasnt it plain as day that he couldnt push it through due to the FF revolt - is he to be blamed for that ... and I should point out that I'm not McDowell's no. 1 fan or anything like it, but credit (or lack of abuse) where its due.

Brendan - your VAT understanding is correct - technically the distributor would charge VAT but the retailer would recover it so, effectively, a nil VAT charge in the middle, and the 21% VAT comes off the sales price to Joe Punter.

ronan_d_john said:

If memory serves, he did highlight the futility of trying to shop around when out buying a pint!!

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If he did say this then it's patently rubbish. I can buy a pint of Guinness for anything from €3.20 up to probably something near a fiver depending on where I go in the central postal districts of Dublin (e.g. 1, 2, 4, 7 etc.). I personally don't consider pints at the lower prices a rip-off. I would tend not to pay a fiver for a pint though. Ultimately I don't really need pints and the purchase is purely discretionary so I can always take it or leave it. There is some great value to be had on beers in off licenses and supermarkets these days for those that can't go without and are amenable to drinking at home or outdoors.

I heard this bit while doing some tidying (so wasn't actually watching) - he had a few lads down in Cork I think, asked them to go and try and get the cheapest pint of Murphys they could, including haggling over the price every time. Don't think there were huge discrepancies in pricing but can't actually remember the prices. Thought it was hilarious that some of them we able to haggle 10c of the price of a pint - funny exercise but probably not something that's ever going to happen a lot in real life.