A pint of Guinness and a bottle of Heineken: €11.80

There's rather a lot to go through here:

• Tax on alcohol hasn't gone up in about a decade - price rises of late are down primarily to the big three breweries who have ratcheted prices, while making record profits.
• If you haven't had a pay rise in ~20 years, you need to change employer or career. The minimum wage has gone up from €6.35 20 years ago to €11.30 now. In 2007 I was earning less than half of what I am now for roughly the same job.
• Hideously, €11.80 is pretty cheap for a Guinness and a bottle of Heineken in Dublin. I wouldn't be surprised to see closer to €13. Bottled beers are massively overpriced in pubs
• Rural pubs will be cheaper than Dublin so I'm not sure how they're relevant to your Dublin price
• Pubs don't generally issue receipts unless you ask for it.

Don't go to Temple Bar whatever you do!

"The minimum wage has gone up from €6.35 20 years ago to €11.30"

Relatively the minimum wage twenty years ago , probably gave you way more purchasing power...

Pubs are essentially dying out for numerous reasons - outside of busy city centres they are done and this is one of the reasons why. It's also a hellish "career" for rural pupowners with the younger people not wanting to take on pubs these days.

I'd question how much the bottle of Heineken was..that's usually a rip off in pubs whatever about a pint of Guinness

The cost to do stuff in Ireland is very high. The 4 big ticket items (usually) house, car, rent, entertainment are way above many EU countries, and these big items have an knock on effect on everything else. The causes are red tape regulations , insurance, taxes, and the 'Catholic irish' attitude to spending and economising.

We really are being sold a tale when a private individual or council can't get a house built for less than 300k.

As regards drinks in pubs n restaurants, that's another tale of cultural woe. I can order beer ingredients and make a good pint at home for 20cents in a 10L batch. Imagine what a pint costs when they're making batches of 200,000 pints?

No rip off at all here. Just naiveity on your part.

Staff wages are quite high in Dublin, all Ng with higher rates, insurance, security etc.etc.

Nothing wrong with those prices at all.

Because it tends to attract the wrong type of client. Suited to places that have a bookies next door and do well on dole day.

Lads that might be into cocaine, insurance claims and fighting will drink it.

Better off going for the premium part of the market. A woman drinking G+T is worth 3 Tuborg drinkers.

So they block a lot of seats too.

Because it's awful??

what has that got to do with anything? pubs are full of beers that many describe as awful, be it guinness, budweiser, heineken, carlsberg, the list goes on...

Diageo are pushing Harp to that market again

Had a smithwicks recently for Eur 6.50. Its taste has really gone down. Back to Heineken I guess

Different local costs like rent

Different market

Capitalism, ability to sell at a higher price and not lose customers

Etc.

?

Sounds like you retired from buying pints in pubs in 2010 too

The key question is, is there a point at which the costs of providing the service and product surpass the ability of the customer to pay?

One can cite wages, rent, rates etc etc all day long, but the reality is that it would appear, from the number of pubs closing, that the consumer has reached a point where paying the price isn't worth it. Certainly not to the volume previously.

The previous practice of simply raising the price up to try to cover the shortfall seems like a losing strategy. Pubs need to think outside the box. Looking for special VAT treatment, or looking for government intervention, is not going to work long term.

You will always have those individual pubs that by dint of history, special meaning, particular location etc will do well, but as a whole, the industry seems to be suffering and, at least from my POV, doesn't appear to have any ideas on how to address the issues.

One way forward is the amalgamation of pubs, from single owner/operator to groups owned by a large corporation but managed locally. This way they can at least look at bulk buying discounts, cross over of staff around different pubs to cover for illness/leave etc. Instead of offering every product available, only stock those that are willing to give you special pricing. Instead of all three pubs in a village being opened during the day, only 1 at a time. Grouping together would help in terms of a bus service for example. Place a minimum spend and below that charge a fee. Or arrange for a taxi company to give a minimum service level so that customers can use the pub app to book a taxi home.

The OPs couple of drinks were never a rip off to start with.

If the thread goes on for another two months they are going to look like a bargain.