Value Ireland Blog

Value Ireland Blog Has Moved

2008-11-05T21:13:00.002Z

This is the last post on this Value Ireland Blog. We have moved to our new home at ValueIreland.com which brings together the original site and the more recent blog content.

Please change your bookmarks and subscriptions to point to our new ValueIreland.com. Some relevant links to do this are available to the right hand side, or go directly to the new site and sign up there.

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Irelands Only Truly Independent Consumer Watchdog

Too many Taxis in Dublin? So get a different job then!

2008-11-04T07:30:00.000Z

At the risk of incurring the wrath of one or two taxi drivers as I did the last time I wrote about taxi drivers in Dublin, can I ask a question following much of the recent coverage where we're being told that deregulation has led to too many taxis in Dublin.

Am I the only one who's wondering at the attitude of taxi drivers to this increase in competition in their business - or livelihoods as it's more emotionally put?

Am I the only one who finds it a little sickening that taxi drivers are calling for regulation to be increased in their business to protect their livelihoods? Did I miss something where taxi drivers became civil and public servants and became entitled to jobs for life?

If there's too many people involved in your line of business, then do something else. If you're livelihood is being threatened because of too much competition, then do something different.

In pretty much everyone elses line of work, if there's too many people doing a particular job that they're qualified for, they have to find something different to do.

I worked in London in the Financial Services sector in the early part of this decade where business was declining following September 11th and therefore there was a focus on cost cutting that meant that my emplyoer at the time could hire 3-4 Indians for less than the cost of my salary. Dell employees in Limerick and Cherrywood have a similar predicament facing them in the next few months as well with cheaper labour threatening their jobs too.

It's a fact of life that challenges will come along threatening your livelihood. Like everyone else, if taxi drivers don't like the look of their future, they should look at their options and change, adapt, or settle for the way things are. Expecting extra legislation or regulation to maintain a closed shop is unrealistic, and should be resisted as it definitely isn't good for consumers.

New ValueIreland.com is Ready - Change your RSS Subscription

2008-11-03T07:00:00.002Z

Apologies if you've already acted on this e-mail and changed your subscription to the new ValueIreland.com. Please bear with us as we try to bring everyone along with us to our new site.

Ahead of schedule, and under budget - the new ValueIreland.com website is now live and ready for use. If you're reading this post on the now old Value Ireland Blog (on the Blogger Blogspot platform), you will need to change your subscription and sign up for the new RSS feed from the new ValueIreland.com site.

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We hope you'll enjoy the new ValueIreland.com site - we hope it combines the best of the original ValueIreland.com site with the Value Ireland Blog. If you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you.

We'll double post on both sites for about a week, but next weekend we'll be deleting the Value Ireland Blog on the Blogger Blogspot site. Hopefully you'll have transferred to the new site by then - we'd hate to lose you.

More about Brian Lenihans nominee panel for Bank boards

2008-11-03T07:00:00.000Z

I posted a week or so ago looking for suggestions as to who should be appointed as the taxpayers nominees on the boards of banks following their bailout by the Government. We had some interesting suggestions from a number of people:

Wanted

Senator Shane Ross
Joe Higgins "has time on his hands these days - in fact why not make him Financial Regulator instead of that wimp we have?"
Eithne Tinney - "she shook up the EBS board"
Brenda Power - "she annoyed the HSE so much they won't take her calls"
Nell McCafferty "she'd take on anyone"
David McWilliams - put his money (or action) where his mouth is
George Lee - lets see if he can act as well as he can talk
Bertie Ahern - he doesn't trust banks
Grainne Carruth - great experience with cash handling
Dr. Alan Ahearne from UCG -He seems to make a lot of sense whenever he's on the radio recently

Not Wanted

Celia Larkin
Glenda Gilson
Roseanna Davison
Eddie Hobbs - needs the banks now to fund his brendan investments
Anyone to do with the Financial Regulator - proven to be no good at their jobs already

Interestingly, there was a similar suggestion from the Irish Bank Officials Association who "don't want the 'old regime' to be nominees".

Unfortunately however, if Simon Carswell is to be believed, we're going to get "same old, same old" in the names that are probably going to end up on this panel - former bankers, civil servants and regulators. More of the banking old boys network - there'd hardly be any concern on the part of the banks if that were to be the case.

No names have been announced by the department yet, but two former chairmen of the Revenue Commissioners, Dermot Quigley and Frank Daly, have been mentioned as possible appointees.

Former central bankers and regulatory figures are also likely to figure on the panel. The former chief executive of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, Liam O’Reilly, is already on the board of Irish Life & Permanent.

Expect other former senior public servants and ex-department secretaries to appear on this panel, which the Minister is thought to be planning to announce shortly.

Jobs for the old boys - but did we really expect anything different?

Christmas Parties - What would you prefer?

2008-11-02T18:45:00.000Z

There's been a bit of coverage last week (here and here for example) where 79% of firms in a survey will be trying to avoid having a Christmas Party in order to save costs.

Given everything that's going on in the world of finance at the moment, it's hardly surprising that this is being considered by firms.

But the coverage in the papers is a bit severe:

Most firms playing Scrooge over Christmas parties this year

Scrooged: Mean bosses put the boot in

Many employers have had to take an Ebenezer Scrooge-style approach to Christmas spending this year and deny staff a night out.

Ebenezer Scrooge is alive and well in the workplace as Irish bosses blame the economic downturn and cancel their Christmas party

And not a tabloid quote in that juicy set from last week.

I appreciate that there are team bonding aspects to such Christmas nights out, but it's likely that teams will organise their own nights out anyway without blowing big wads of cash on a big night out.

What are your thoughts? I know that if the choice was up to me, I'd much prefer a little extra cash each month during the year rather than getting a free night out at the end of the year.

New ValueIreland.com is Ready - Change your RSS Subscription

2008-11-02T08:00:00.000Z

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Updates to www.ValueIreland.com

2008-10-31T21:44:00.000Z

To those of you who may have arrived here via a redirect from pages on the www.ValueIreland.com website, please bear with us.

In the background, we're working on a new www.ValueIreland.com site which will incorporate both the original site and this blog.

All going well, this new site should be available by the end of next week - November 9th. All our articles will be republished and made available again in the new website.

Consumers Association of Ireland AGM - Show me the members!

2008-10-30T23:20:00.003Z

At 1pm today in the O’Connell Suite of the Burlington Hotel in Dublin, the Consumers Association of Ireland held their AGM. There were 16 members present – 8 of whom were on the council or executive of the association (basically involved in running/overseeing the association).

That’s right - 8 ordinary members of the Association showed for the AGM - a number which I heard described as a "good turnout".

That’s only 8 out of the 5,500 or 8,000 members – depending on who you speak to. That’s only a single member more than quorum. Up until a few minutes before 1pm, even achieving quorum was looking unlikely.

I’ll provide more updates on what happened over the coming days (especially since there were no journalists present), but I did get an answer on the membership numbers discrepancy. The true number of paying members is actually closer to 4,000 than 5,500 and a far cry from 8,000.

However, the reason that 8,000 members is quoted is ingenious.

Here’s how it works! For every class, in every school that has a schools subscription, the CAI assumes that that’s actually 20 extra association members. So, take as an example a school that has 15 classes and pays its €140 in membership. The CAI actually increases their membership by 300 rather than just the 1.

Or by 300 “potential” members as the Chief Executive described the school kids today!

Disclaimer: I am a member, council and executive member of the Consumers Association of Ireland and all this was news to me today.

Consumers' Association of Ireland AGM - Questions for members to ask the Board and CEO

2008-10-27T22:16:00.003Z

Halloween is coming so I’m donning my Shane Ross mask and assuming his semi-regular role where he poses questions for shareholders of companies who have an AGM coming up.

This coming Thursday is the AGM of the Consumer Association of Ireland, so I’m providing a few questions for its members to ask the board at the meeting in the Burlington Hotel at 1pm.

What do members actually get for their annual subscription of €96 per year?

Members receive a magazine which effectively costs €8 per month – twice the cost of the Eddie Hobbs’ “You and Your Money” magazine. Is that it? Are there any other benefits available from being an association member?

The aim of the Association is “To independently protect, promote and represent the interests of consumers”. Where is the primary focus of effort and time of the Association staff and Board – is it on consumers in general (non-members) or on the interests of the Associations members paying their €96 per year?

How many individual, school, and corporate members does the Consumer Association of Ireland actually have?

Is it 5,500? (Based on published accounts for the year ended May 31 2008, membership income was €518,165 which indicated a membership of approximately 5,500. Given that corporate and other membership is available at a higher fee, the actual membership is possibly lower than that).

Or is it 8000? (According to James Doorley, Chairman of the CAI, in the Sunday Business Post, in December 2007).

What is the rate of membership growth over the past 1, 3 and 5 years? How much was spent on marketing in each of those time periods?

Come along to the AGM on Thursday. Get involved in the discussion. Make the Association better for its members.

A disclaimer – I am a member and a director of the Consumer Association of Ireland, but other members may have better success than me in finding out the answers.

Bank Holiday Weekend - Consumer News Short Stack

2008-10-24T01:18:00.007+01:00

Just a couple of short points before the long weekend.

Firstly, as well as Dunnes Stores and Centra stores, apparently Superquinn also provide a breakdown on their shopping receipts of how much you spent on Irish made products.

Have you seen the price of the "Premium Club" membership for the new O2 venue? €1,500 gets you two free tickets, access to a bar, special seats and even a membership card. Cool! I suppose it does have the benefit of getting you tickets for sold out concerts. Still, a bit steep! And still no sign of the special ticketing arrangements for O2 customers.

I'm checking out two sites that were sent my way recently. Anyone seen them, or used them? QuoteClub.ie and SeatWave.com. All feedback and comments welcome.

A great post from Frugal Ireland on how to indulge your bookworming without doing much damage to your wallet.

Great article today in the Irish Independent by Carissa Casey - Don't be afraid to haggle and get a price that's right. Worth a read!

Have a great weekend!

Save money on calls to eFlow

2008-10-24T01:03:00.000+01:00

It took us multiple unanswered e-mails and eventually the submission of a Freedom of Information request to the NRA, but our SayNoTo1890.com website finally got a geographical alternative for the eFlow customer service number 1890 50 10 50.

eFlow Customer Service 1890 50 10 50 - Call 01 6602511 and select the eFlow call centre option

If you have a contract with any of the mobile or landline providers that provides you with bundles of minutes each month, you can now call this number instead of the 1890 number. These calls will then come from your minutes bundle rather than you being charged upwards of 35c per minute on your mobile.

The disaster of ignoring customer feedback

2008-10-24T00:58:00.002+01:00

I wonder about the potential true impact of this “free dinner” offer that is allegedly offered in place of leaving a poor review up on the menupages.ie website, as referred to earlier this week?

If someone has a bad experience the second time around, I wonder would the original and new poor reviews be still left up on the site. Presumably such a scenario would be even more damning for the restaurant.

How? Let’s assume a scenario where someon had a bad experience in a hotel / restaurant. That person then complained to said hotel / restaurant and was offered a complimentary nights’ bed and breakfast at a point in time when they claimed that the problems would be resolved.

You would expect then that whenever that person was to book their nights accommodation that said hotel / restaurant would be prepared – they’d know that the person was coming and would be able to ensure that none of the original problems happened again. Sort of like a restaurant being tipped off that a restaurant reviewer was on their way. I don’t necessarily agree with this as such extra special service and quality should be standard for all guests.

It’d almost be like bribing someone with extra special service and quality in order to get them to change their minds about the original poor review and to think better about the place second time around.

What should that person then think if their second experience was the same, if not a little worse, than first time around? How should they feel when, despite the fact that the hotel knows that person is arriving and getting the night for free because of a poor experience last time around, they still put that person in the same room that they’d a problem with last time around, and hadn’t changed a single aspect of their customer service experience that was so poor first time around?

You’d just give up, wouldn’t you? The hotel asked for a chance to improve things, which they were given, and yet they’re no better than they were the first time around. How much do they really care about their regular customers when they can’t properly treat someone they know is watching them really carefully?

It’d almost be like recognising the restaurant critic coming in the door, kicking him in the nuts, and feeding him with last nights slops and leftovers. Take a bow Breaffy House Resort, Castlebar, Co. Mayo.

An interesting case of “follow the money”

2008-10-21T20:11:00.004+01:00

There’s a long thread at the moment on the Consumer Pages of Boards.ie entitled “Menupages.ie - negative reviews are removed” where it is claimed by several posters that negative reviews about some restaurants on the site were removed. It is also claimed that restaurants only have to ring menupages.ie to ask for negative reviews to be removed.

These claims were rejected by a menupages.ie member of staff saying that the negative reviews were taken down temporarily until the dissatisfied customers were offered a free meal at the restaurant in order to see if their minds could be changed.

This reasoning was rejected by one particular poster, who following a query to menupages.ie was told that the bad report was taken down - suspected to have been at the request of the restaurant, while the free meal was subsequently only offered following the complaint rather than being normal procedures as maintained by the menupages.ie staff member.

Indeed, no other posters who had negative posts taken down came forward to confirm that they had been offered a free meal pending reinstatement of their post, and since more issues were raised, there has been no further sign of the menupages.ie staff member.

While registration on menupages.ie is free to all restaurants, it appears that the reviews removed in these cases were reviews of "premium" or special restaurants who pay a subscription or advertising for a special position on the menupages.ie site.

This certainly puts into question the integrity of a consumer review based website that accepts advertising and then controls content on the basis of the wishes of those advertisers – even if only temporarily as claimed.

This was a major difficulty faced by ValueIreland.com in the early days when we provided a forum for users to provide positive and negative feedback on Irish business providers. While we would have loved a consistent stream of income, we believed that we could not hold our truly independent position if we were receiving any money from anyone.

How to build a website about nothing!

2008-10-21T20:11:00.001+01:00

The useless Commission for Energy Regulation has launched it's new "customer focused website". This website has been in development since February 2005. Can you believe it - it's taken them 3 years to put together a website that will tell customers nothing about what they really want to know when it comes to gas and electricity.

Why am I being charged so much, and who keeps allowing the suppliers increase their prices?
Why isn't there any competition in the gas or electricity markets?

It's nearly 4 years now since the electricity market was deregulated for domestic electricity supply. And unfortunately, there's still no competition for the ESB - our research done in 2005 is still valid today with very little need for updates (unfortunately).

I was wrong about the National Consumer Agency

2008-10-21T20:06:00.003+01:00

In A recent post, I asked: "What will it take for these fuckers* to actually do something to protect consumers?". This was in response to the failure of the National Consumer Agency to prosecute and fine another car dealer who breached consumer legislation and ripped off consumers by selling 4 clocked cars.

It was pointed out to me that the NCA have recently actually prosecuted and fined publicans for selling watered down vodka.

As reported at the start of October, a publican in Kilkenny was convicted and fined €2,500 (with €1,000 in costs charged also) for the offence of selling watered down vodka following a complaint from a member of the public.

I stand corrected.

A publican sells a watered down vodka for €3 or €4 to a consumer and is convicted and has to pay over €3,500 to the NCA. But a car dealer sells a clocked car for possibly upwards on 1,000 times the cost of a vodka, but that rip off car dealer gets away with promising to be a good boy in future.

Did someone say useless pointless regulator? Maybe I wasn't so wrong after all?

Who should be on Brian Lenihans nominee panel to become bank directors?

2008-10-20T20:20:00.003+01:00

Over the weekend, I posted my thoughts on the proposal from Brian Lenihan to place his nominees onto the boards of any banks involved in the governments bank bail-out / guarantee scheme. There were two comments posted in response, but along the same lines.

The question is - who should Brian Lenihan actually put onto his panel of nominees?

The suggestions in the comments for potential nominees were as follows:

Senator Shane Ross
Joe Higgins - "has time on his hands these days - in fact why not make him Financial Regulator instead of that wimp we have?"
Eithne Tinney - "she shook up the EBS board"
Brenda Power - "she annoyed the HSE so much they won't take her calls"
Nell McCafferty - "she'd take on anyone"

Who else do you think should be on this panel? Who would you like to see walking into the board rooms of Bank Of Ireland or AIB in the coming months? Or who do you think should definitely not be sent in?

I have a few that I’ll post later in the week, but in the meantime, e-mail or post a comment below with your thoughts. Like our Consumer Pre-Budget Submission, I'll compile the listing of suggestions from everyone by the end of the week and I'll e-mail them into the Minister on Friday.

Frank Fahey and the banks

2008-10-19T18:48:00.004+01:00

It was interesting to see Frank Fahey in yesterdays Irish Times calling for the government to invest in the banks. In a statement that might lead one to think that he doesn't grasp the principles involved in investing through the stock market, he says:

I advocate that our Government should consider these issues. There is no risk involved in that the money will be repaid.

Buying shares in the banks is hardly a risk free investment.

Then again, Mr. Fahey would know - him being a shareholder (or at least was) in both Bank of Ireland and Irish Life & Permanent (Permanent TSB). A Government recapitalisation of the banks would definitely put a floor under any losses that he may have on those investments.

Brian Lenihans pointless idea to nominate directors to bank boards

2008-10-18T00:37:00.000+01:00

I’ve been doing a bit of thinking about one of the conditions being imposed by Brian Lenihan as part of his bank bail-out package. This is the one where he will be putting a person of his own choosing onto the board of each of the banks.

In order to promote the public interest, a covered institution shall, at the direction of the Minister, take all reasonable steps to appoint at least one but no more than two non-executive directors to its board from a panel approved by the Minister during the period of the guarantee. The covered institution shall remunerate those non-executive directors.

While I’m sure he has very noble intentions with this particular aspect of the deal, it is completely and utterly useless as a means to keeping an eye on the banks.

When you become a director of a company, your primary “fiduciary duty” is to the company itself – not to the shareholders, not to your fellow directors, and definitely not to any outsider third parties (like the Government or the Irish people).

Therefore, the board nominees of Brian Lenihan will definitely be on the inside, but they won’t be able to report any information back. They’ll very likely see what’s going on in the banks boardrooms, but they won’t be able to tell anyone.
But, I hear you say; they’ll have a vote on the board and they will therefore be able to influence things. And if they can’t influence things, they will be able to record their dissention on the minutes of the board meetings – which can be viewed by the shareholders (should they ever decide to do so).

Again, this all very noble in aspiration and theory but none of this is ever going to happen when it comes to day to day practice.

The government nominee is going to be in a minority of 1 at every meeting. They will be ignored and sidelined (completely legitimately, by the way) and they will not be able to do a single thing about this or about anything that they see happening within the confines of the boardroom.

My point pretty much ends there - it's an unworkable idea that won't achieve the results that we're being told that it will – but you can read on for extra detail if you want to see a hypothetical example of how all this exclusion and isolation of the government nominee could be achieved by any unscrupulous banks.

Take as an example a theoretical bank, ABC Bank Limited. This theoretical financial institution has a board of 8 people - made up of 7 bank representatives and the single outsider nominee as part of this brave new “post bail-out” world.

Let’s see what could happen at the very first board meeting following the government nominee appointment:

The board votes for a Chairman and Deputy-Chairman. Custom and practice dictated that person x and person y were going to get these positions this year, because it’s their turn. The government nominee is aware that person y would probably be unacceptable to the share-holders and the government because of past indiscretions, but is outvoted 7-1.
The board then votes to create a finance sub-committee that will be responsible for determining pay, conditions, and looking after the accounts prior to presentation to the full board. Despite standing for one of the positions, our government nominee doesn’t get onto the sub-committee because he’s in a minority of one.

Concerned about what might be happening out of sight, tThe nominee asks about seeing minutes from finance sub-committee meetings, but is told that they’re never circulated to the full board “because it’s always been that way”. The nominee asks for a vote to be taken that would allow finance sub-committee meeting minutes to be shown to the full board, but is voted down 7-1.

The nominee, having tried to do his job for Minister Lenihan, but still within his directorial responsibilities, asks that this vote and decision be recorded in the meeting minutes, and that his dissatisfaction with the result be also recorded.

As the meeting continues, in an effort to become familiar with what’s going on within the company, the government nominee asks a series of questions about different items that are being discussed, or tries to find out the background to some items. He’s variously told that:

o We’ll have that information for you at the next meeting

o You don’t need to concern yourself with that particular item – we’ve always done things that way

o That’s confidential so we can’t give you any further details on that

o That’s a Freedom of Information issue, so we can’t give you that information

o That’s a day to day banking issue – you don’t need to micro-manage issues – the board is only responsible for high-level matters

o That's a matter for the auditors - they're happy with things so you don't need to worry about it

And there we have it – the government nominee is sidelined and ignored at his very first meeting. This is all done completely legitimately and the board has operated within the bounds of all company law requirements – they’ve done nothing wrong except to reduce the government nominee to a mere sock-puppet at the boardroom table.

But hang on, what about the minutes from the meeting? Won’t they include all of the discussions and items from above? Well, let’s have a look at the next board meeting activities:

The minutes of the last meeting are circulated, and a vote is proposed for their approval. The government nominee notices that specifically:

o There is no record of his request that finance sub-committee minutes be submitted to the board – nor is there any mention of the vote that was taken.

o There is no note recorded in the minutes, despite his specific request for its inclusion, of his stated dissatisfaction with the fact that the main board doesn’t get sight of finance sub-committee minutes

o There is no record of the fact that he was supposed to be provided with information as a result of questions raised at the last meeting.

o Nor is there any record of his other requests for information which were dismissed, and obviously no record of the reasons for dismissing the requests.

The government nominee raises these issues, but the chairman ignores the protestations because the rest of the board as indicating that they’re happy with the minutes.

At a vote, the minutes are approved by a 7-1 majority as being a fair representation of the previous meeting. To the government nominee, it’s now like as if the previous meeting, and their complete contribution, didn’t happen at all.

The government, unhappy with the way minutes are taken, proposes a vote that minutes be recorded and subsequently be transcribed, rather than having a bank secretarial staff member taking them. However, that vote is also defeated - and as the government nominee slowly begins to realise the pointlessness of it all - doesn't even bother any more to ask to have the vote and subsequent decision recorded on the minutes.

So, we now have a government nominee that can do absolutely nothing within the confines of the boardroom and who can do nothing outside of it either, since company law has not been broken.

It is entirely likely that if they were to try to reveal the true substance behind what’s going on at boardroom level in the bank, they are the ones who could potentially be in trouble.

In such a no-win situation, what is the government nominee to do? Be in a minority of 1 for the whole time on the board, or gradually toe the boardroom line and take advantage of their position as a board member of a major financial institution? Remember, the government nominee is going to be paid by the bank themselves rather than by the government - "whoever pays the piper calls the tunes?"

It’ll take government nominees of very strong standing and moral fortitude to stand apart in such a situation and not sell out completely and “become one of the boys”.

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more

2008-10-18T00:32:00.004+01:00

From the classic movie Network - this is four minutes that is definitely worth watching given what's been going on in Ireland this week.

TopTips.ie - A Euro Saved is A Euro Earned

2008-10-16T21:58:00.002+01:00

Check out our TopTips.ie site for our most recent top tips on helping you to save money. This week we gave ten Top Tips on reducing your electricity usage to save money, as well as ten more on reducing your gas usage.

In the last couple of weeks, we also had Top Tips on saving money on your car insurance as well as Top Tips on saving money for yourself through the Value Ireland Savings Plan.

Click here to check all these out and maybe counteract the impact of the recent budget in a small way.

NCA still failing to discourage car clocking

2008-10-16T20:34:00.002+01:00

I had the post below drafted earlier this week. It's still current, but given the recent budget, it does raise a key question.

How much better protected will Irish consumers be under the combined National Consumer Agency / Competition Authority than they are now under the separate entities?

This post below shows the complete inaction of the NCA to use the consumer protection legislation that they could use, while I've written before about the uselessness of the Competition Authority - witness the spectacular 2006 failure to act over the Shell / Statoil merger.

We can only wait and see. If the proposed amalgamation isn't going to improve consumer protection, then we'll have to see what cost savings are going to be implemented instead. Either way, I suppose consumer protection in Ireland can't get any worse:

In July of this year we reported how the National Consumer Agency was taking it easy on garages that were ripping off consumers by selling them clocked cars. At the time we felt that the practice by the NCA of getting the garages to promise to be good wouldn't be enough to get garages to stop this clocking of cars.

Despite this, Ann Fitzgerald claimed that this softly softly approach:
Sends a clear message to other dealers that they cannot mislead consumers by selling them clocked cars and expect to get away with it
Obviously not, given this report at the end of September that the Airport Used Cars Centre in Cloghran in Dublin was caught having sold 4 clocked cars to consumers.

An unbelievably, given this clear evidence that the NCA softly softly approach isn't working, they still won't prosecute and fine the car dealer for breaching consumer laws and ripping off consumers.

What will it take for these fuckers* to actually do something to protect consumers?

"there’s also an element of personal culpability"

2008-10-15T23:14:00.003+01:00

From Harry McGee on his Irish Times Politics Blog:

There was a commuter from Kells giving out about the €200 per year charge. Now Kells is a long way to be commuting into Dublin every day. Sure, house prices in Dublin went crazy for years and people had to move out. But there’s also an element of personal culpability there. People wanted thousands of square feet of living accommodation and big gardens to boot. And if they wanted that, they had to endure the commensurate pain of a long (and increasingly expensive) commute. And those of us who live close to the city got proximity but have got small living spaces, much much smaller than the houses in which we grew up. That’s the compromise you make.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Buying Irish - do your bit and watch what you buy

2008-10-15T22:34:00.001+01:00

Last month I wrote about how to properly focus a "Buy Irish" campaign. My proposal was that it was ultimately down to consumers to change their buying habits to buy more Irish produce which should then lead supermarkets to stock more Irish produce in order to meet the demand.

Are you doing your bit?

Thank you, by the way, to the reader who corrected me when I mentioned that Dunnes Stores were the only supermarket in the country to provide a breakdown of how much of your weekly shop was Irish produce on your receipt.

Apparently Centra supermarket stores also provide this useful information on their receipts.

Tinkering Around the Edges - Budget 2009

2008-10-14T17:19:00.006+01:00

That's about the sum total of my thoughts on Budget 2009 from Brian Lenihan. Lots of messing around here and there, but nothing that really stands out as addressing the causes, or resolving the impact, of the problems that we're faced with.

With regards to state agencies, you may have heard that the plan is to:

proceed with 30 rationalisation proposals that will reduce the number of bodies by 41, streamline functions in 3 areas and rationalise the army barracks structure bringing it more into line with operational requirements and permitting economies of scale.

This does mean that the National Consumer Agency will be merged with the Competition Authority. There's no further details on what the implications of this will be. Still - let the Celebrity Death Match between Ann Fitzgerald and Bill Prasifka begin. The winner gets to look after the consumers interests.

Suffice to say that in the short term, it won't actually mean a whole lot anyway, and it's unlikely to really save any money in the long term. Job losses? Hardly. Cost reductions? Unlikely. All we can hope for is that the interests of consumers are better served by the amalgamation of two useless regulators into one. We'll see if two wrongs with regards to consumer affairs can actually make a single right.

Possibly the most interesting aspect of this decision is the fact that the National Consumer Agency was longer an interim (a pretend, powerless) organisation that it was an acutual properly functioning agency. It was announced in 2005, received statutory powers in 2007, and is now slated for amalgamation in 2008.

Isn't that a damning indictment of the uselessness of the agency itself, and a perfect illustration of the complete failure of this governments policies and actions in looking after Irish consumers?

Brian Lenihans Budget 2009 Speech

2008-10-14T17:11:00.003+01:00

Before I get a chance to mess around with the contents, here's a Wordle of the actual speech just given by Brian Lenihan, Minister for Finance.

Click on the image itself for a bigger version.