Blog on here:Hotel car parks should first and foremost be for the use of the residents of the hotel. There is nothing more frustrating than turning up at your hotel to check in and find that you cannot get a space in their car park.
Hotels had to do something to prevent non-patrons from occupying spaces designed for their residents. Many hotels now are offering free parking to their residents, low charges (for example, €2.75) to those coming in for lunch meetings and so on, and then a hefty price (say €32) for those who wish to abuse their hospitality and inconvenience their guests. - Colm
Is An Post slow to get the message?
Is it just my innocence or is An Post behaving in an unbelievably arrogant fashion? A citizen who does not avail or intend to avail of the services of our national broadcaster is nonetheless "in the system", and must inform them annually that "his circumstances have not changed", at which point "that should be sufficient". Where will this approach stop? Should we be obliged to pre-emptively contact every utility provider whose services we don't intend to make use of, on an annual basis, just to reassure them that their offerings are still not being availed of? - GP
A point-of-view on freeview
I dropped NTL in 2001 after three price hikes in 12 months in excess of 50 per cent. I went free-to-air and BBC, ITV, Film 4, and many others joined me later. I have poor analogue RTÉ in the Dublin area but now with a freeview box (£25; €37) from Argos in Co Derry I can see free digital RTÉ on digital terrestrial television (DTT). What we really need is RTÉ to stop doing secret deals with Sky, as licence-payers in many parts of Ireland cannot see RTÉ, while RTÉ agrees with Sky to encrypt our national signal. - Brian Greene
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