Does anyone buy petrol here ?

The small texaco garage on the Drumcondra road (beside the Skylon Hotel). This surely must be the most expensive garage in Dublin ? - yesterday they were selling unleaded for 1.339 EUR per litre ... this is at least 15% more than the cheapest garages (I think Tesco is 1.159 at the moment ?)

This (very small) garage is always way more expensive than anywhere else ... I wonder why they even bother .. surely nobody fills up there ?

Just curious ... does anyone know what the story with it is

I believe it is taking advantage of being the near the airport - and picking up the rental cars trade.. just another thing for tourists to add to the image of rip-off Ireland...

I wonder if many public service vehicles go to this filling station for fuel? I mean Garda cars, ambulances, corporation transport units, army units???

They is a garage in Ballyragget in Co. Kilkenny that is charging 130 a litre and it is in the middle of nowhere.

Garages with small turnover are forced to sell at high prices because they cannot take advantage of volume discounts offered by wholesalers. In cases like the ones mention above, petrol sales are usually a negligible element of the business. The only reason they keep the pumps open is to keep their planning permission and/or fuel vendor's licence. Were they to cease selling petrol, it could be difficult for them to re-establish planning permission and licensing, for example if there plans to sell the place or to remodel the business.

I pass that garage frequently and, yes, I've seen people actually buy petrol in there !! Probably not AAM users, though - we always shop around, don't we

I heard the owner of this garage being interviewed before. He was defending his prices saying that he was actually passing on the higher wholesale prices he was being charged. He was actually very annoyed by the bad press and felt that he was being squeezed out of business by the oil supplier.

That petrol station is nowhere near the airport or the car rentals - the reason that it's so expensive is that it's the only petrol station on the direct run from the ciy centre to the end of the M1 (or end of M50 if that's the way you turn off). So people could be sitting in traffic for up to an hour with their petrol light flashing and it's like a beacon for them when they spot that Texaco sign. They charge what their market will bear.

How many people would drop in there for a drop of petrol rather than trying to turn off at Santry and getting back on at Coolock ?

I've had to stop there a couple of times myself on my bike after getting caught short so to speak!

However if you ever do stop there for petrol you'll notice that very few people fill up - they just throw €20 in and off they go.