RipOff Website Damaging Tourism

Mr E

Any thoughts on this?

Minister says 'rip-off' website damaging tourism
17/11/2004 - 13:54:00

The Minister for Tourism John O'Donoghue has said that persistent claims of a rip-off culture in Ireland are doing great damage to the tourist industry.

Minister O'Donoghue said he does not believe the claims of widespread profiteering, and that the image of the Irish as a greedy nation is a false one.

Fine Gael has been leading the charge against price rises, with an online campaign aimed at naming businesses who have hiked up the cost of goods and services.

The Tourism Minister said the hype surrounding retail prices has become a national obsession, which puts off potential tourists.

He has called on Fine Gael to withdraw their website "ripoff.ie".

Sherifu

Fianna Fail would rather their shortcomings not be highlighted methinks.

L5

TmB wrote:

Any thoughts on this?

well im glad tourists are staying away, the fact is its one of the most expensive countries in europe to live in . There is no reason this should be so except for greed. F&^K all the pub owners and shop keepers, i hope they go out of business

Mr E

Fun with punctuation....

Before: Minister O'Donoghue said he does not believe the claims of widespread profiteering, and that the image of the Irish as a greedy nation is a false one.

After: Minister O'Donoghue said he does not believe the claims of widespread profiteering and that the image of the Irish as a greedy nation is a false one.

Oryx

This is a greedy nation, but I dont expect a politician to realise (too much money and living on a cloud) Letting people know might stop the rip off happening

Guy:Incognito

L5 wrote:

F&^K all the pub owners and shop keepers, i hope they go out of business

Yeah,then the country collapses and everyone is poor, that'll learn 'em.

aidan_walsh

Stekelly wrote:

Yeah,then the country collapses and everyone is poor, that'll learn 'em.

No, silly, then one person can start up again, and realising that they have no competition, charge prices as low as they like :rolleyes:

Guy:Incognito

Stekelly
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doodle_sketch
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how odd
Are you mirroring all my posts or what, help! I have a stalker.

FX Meister

If I was making €180,000 a year too I wouldn't be thinking Ireland was a rip off nation. The only upside I see is that it's no longer seems expensive in other countries when you go on holidays.

smiaras

This post has been deleted.

Eurorunner

The Minister for Tourism John O'Donoghue has said that persistent claims of a rip-off culture in Ireland are doing great damage to the tourist industry.

What a muppet. its easier take this line than tackle the problem.

The opposite end of this Johnnyboy is 'the truth hurts but it cures'.

dub45

Eurorunner wrote:

What a muppet. its easier take this line than tackle the problem.

The opposite end of this Johnnyboy is 'the truth hurts but it cures'.

I know that the vast majority of people are not going to be rushing to buy expensive headphones but anyways in Madrid recently Sennheiser 650 headphones €320 in Dublin €550! you can buy a book of ten tickets for the metro - they have 12 lines - (which takes in a trip to the airport too) for €6.50 - the luas equivalent would be about €16? Even in up market shops you can get a cup of coffee for €1.30 - friend of mine with dry skin asked me to pick up some Sanex shower stuff for her €3.50 there €5.50 here.

FF want me to belive that was all a dream?

rondjon

smiaras wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Checking out this voting on the FG website, interestingly, you can vote as many times as you like.

They'll most likely use the result of the poll to take more shots at the government in the press. How could they possibly stand behind something so unscientific?

It's a quiet day today here. I'm going to move "Government" from the 11% it is now to a much higher number.

And, if you total the votes, they come to 106%.

Fine Gael - Vote once, vote often......

BrianD

I doubt of too many tourists check up on ripoff.ie but what most of them are doing is booking online and are able to compare prices immediately.

It is word of mouth that is killing Irish tourism. Visitors come here and get poor value for money and experience the high prices. They go home and tell 16 of their friends!!

LFCFan

When I was in the States, anyone I talked to about Ireland said they'd love to come here but they can't afford it. Or, they had been to Ireland and they were shocked at how expensive it was. I'd doubt very much if any of these people were regular visitors to ripoff.ie or ripoffireland.org. O'Donohue is living in a dreamworld. He has a massive salary and huge expense account and get's chauffer driven all over the place. He has some cheek to come out and tell us, the general public, that RipOffIreland is a myth.

http://www.ripoffireland.org

Paddy20

The truth hurts ! Oh, Oh, Ah, Oooow, stop kicking me

P.

pork99

It's not just damaging tourism

Dell has a plant in Limerick, Ireland which employs more than 3000 people; but high manufacturing and labour costs mean that it is unlikely that Dell would consider establishing a second plant in the Republic.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/09/dell_europe_expansion/

Dar

I wonder which plant Dell will choose to close when demand for PCs takes another downturn.

is_that_so

pork99 wrote:

It's not just damaging tourism



http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/09/dell_europe_expansion/

France is most likely site

here goes

TmB wrote:

Any thoughts on this?

i think that on the face of it, rip off ireland could be thought of as bad for tourism. but it is a brilliant site and what is being said is what is happening. it is not ripoffireland that is damaging tourism it is the high taxes the minister and his buddies impose on the people trying to make tourism their business. a restaurant owner is paying 21% of the bill he collects to the buddy brigade, the after all the other costs, if s/he is lucky enough to make a profit, the buddy brigade will whack up to 40% of that profit. (i am not and having nothing to do with restaurants by the way). and another thing, why on earth are we as consumers and cafe/restaurant owners paying 21% tax on food? when did food become a luxury to the majority of people in ireland - or is that what the bb are aiming at? cos at the prices we are all paying, it will indeed become a luxury.
it is just another case where the buddy bridgade pass off the problems they are causing onto someone else, in this case ripoffireland.org.

here goes

BrianD wrote:

I doubt of too many tourists check up on ripoff.ie but what most of them are doing is booking online and are able to compare prices immediately.

It is word of mouth that is killing Irish tourism. Visitors come here and get poor value for money and experience the high prices. They go home and tell 16 of their friends!!

hi brian - it is worse than that. i check out tourist forums on the net all the time and they don't even need ripoffireland (great though it is). they are posting details of rip offs in ireland all over the web. one guy said he had been charged in a cafe: three euro for a cup of tea, four euro for a slice of apple tart, and TWO EURO FOR A DOLLOP OF CREAM!!! how on earth do we expect people to come back for a holiday here (and believe me from my info gathering, thousands really do want to visit ireland) but rip offs like that are gonna send them running - and then running to the nearest tourist forum to report it to, not just 16 friends but to the rest of the world too.

Capt'n Midnight

Irish liable laws are the only reason it would not be a good idea to take him up on his statement. Would be nice to have a court of law declare that it was actually the RIP-OFF PRICES that were affecting tourism and not a single website. And it's a relatively tame one at that.

On the 6 O'Clock news tonight they reckoned that 10% of what will be spent in Belfast for christmas will come from down here. What is also important is the Minister has missed out on the biggest market for Irish tourism, us. Many of don't think twice about going abroad, or being heistant about using Irish hotelliers because of the likleyhood of being ripped off. Anyone got any stats on the % change in people from the republic going staying down here or going up north over the last couple of years ? Or the stats on northerners coming down here ?