Getting a shock from electricity prices

PRICEWATCH DAILY:When holiday home rent is €1,000, is it fair to be charged another €50 for electricity?  CONOR POPEanswers readers' queries

- A reader from Galway contacted us to give out about the extra electricity charges associated with renting holiday homes in Ireland.

“We went to Wexford where we had an okay time, save for the miserable weather,” she writes. “When it came to pay, I was just a little surprised to be asked for more than €50 to cover the cost of electricity – it worked out at something like €9 a day – although, to be fair, the surprise was my own fault as when I went back and checked, it was clearly stated in the terms and conditions that there would be such a charge.”

She wants to know if anyone else thinks it is a bit much to be charged more than €1,000 a week for a holiday home and then have to pay extra for electricity? “I have rented houses in France, Greece and Spain and have never once been asked to pay for utilities, presumably because it is factored into the cost.”

Unfortunately, such charges, while unusual across the EU, are not uncommon in Ireland – we checked with a dozen holiday-home providers throughout the country late last week, and all charge extra for electricity. Some have fixed daily prices while others take meter readings at the beginning and end of the holiday and charge accordingly.

While electricity prices during the summer tend to be lower than the rest of the year, it is still hard to understand how a holidaymaker can be charged between €40 and €50 for a week’s worth of electricity during the summer, when usage is almost certainly at its minimum, even in the middle of a fairly cold, wet summer like this one.

Given the downturn, it might be worth haggling or at the very least insist on paying the metered charge rather than agreeing to pay some artificially inflated price seemingly plucked from the air by the holiday-home owner.

The train after the night before

Caroline O’Connell took a morning train from Rosslare to Dublin recently and won’t be doing it again for a long time. “[The carriage] didn’t look, or smell, like it had been cleaned the night before,” she writes. “Certainly, nobody bothered to look in the bathroom of the first coach, which had cigarette ash on the floor and a Heineken can in the sink. There was no water in the taps or the toilet cistern and no soap,” she says, adding that it would be a “great service if Irish Rail would install smoke alarms in the loos like on aircraft. It might stop the pig-ignorant smokers stinking the place out.”

A coffee and a scone for less than €2

Over the course of the summer, readers have frequently complained about high prices, but every now and then someone has got in touch to highlight good value. Recently, Seamus King “was forced to spend an hour in Watergrasshill” in Co Cork. It was early and he wanted a cup of coffee but the pubs and cafes in the town were not yet open.

“A passer-by directed me to the Gala supermarket in the middle of the only street. They had a coffee dispenser and as the plastic cup was filling I looked around and saw fruit scones on sale.” He asked for butter and jam, which was no problem. How much? “€1.80 for the lot. I sat in my car and thought it wasn’t such a bad country after all.”

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- Stunned by high prices or bad service? Want to share a bargain? Let us know at www.irishtimes.com/ blogs/pricewatch