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Dublin: Soooo expensive!

Dublin: Soooo expensive!

If you live in Dublin, this is NO surprise to you: Dublin is crazily expensive and there is no proper justification for it.

Now even knowing that and being exposed to it every single day, sometimes you just come across something that puts it right in your face again. Today it was an e-mail from Riu Hotels. Riu Hotels is an international hotel chain founded by the Spanish Riu family in 1953 in Mallorca and now owned by TUI.

Not tooo long ago, the Riu Hotels group bought the Gresham Hotel in Dublin’s O’Connell Street and today I got an e-mail from them because I signed up as a “Riu Class” loyalty scheme member. (Don’t ask me why I signed up! :-) Yes, I stayed once in Riu Hotel, but it is not that I often stay in hotels and I have no specific preference for any chain anyway, but I am digressing.)

So that e-mail lists some special offers for Riu Hotels and the list goes:

Hotel Riu Plaza The Gresham Dublin — From EUR 178
Hotel Riu Plaza New York Times Square — From EUR 141
Hotel Riu Plaza Berlin — From EUR 69
Hotel Riu Plaza Miami Beach — From EUR 157
Hotel Riu Plaza Espana Madrid — From EUR 162

I didn’t look into details and conditions of these special offers, so there could be some differences, but isn’t it just typical that out of five hotels worldwide, the MOST expensive one is the one in Dublin!?

Infuriating legal case: Aer Lingus vs. Hot Chocolate Drinker

Infuriating legal case: Aer Lingus vs. Hot Chocolate Drinker

It is absolutely infuriating when judges make stupid judgements, but it doesn’t get much better when cases are settled.

In this case, a 12 year old boy (sitting next to his dad!) got a cup of hot chocolate and some additional milk from a flight attendant on an Aer Lingus flight from Nice to Dublin. A lid was firmly on the cup!! The boy takes the cup and opens it to put the milk inside. Then he replaces the lid and when he tries to drink, the hot chocolate pours over his leg.

He gets some burns, removes his clothes in the toilet and gets first aid. After arrival in Dublin the boy is brought to hospital and makes a good recovery.

All this is described in the Breaking News article here.

But let me unpack that! A dad buys a hot chocolate for his son (because the son is 12 years of age and because it might not be too far fetched to think that the dad did pay for it, I think we can assume that the dad had some involvement). The son then takes the lid off and does not properly put it back on again. The dad doesn’t check and clearly fails in his duty of care. So now the son screwed up and the dad screwed up.

The son pours the hot drink over his leg and gets burns. Very regrettable and not a good situation for the son, but WHERE in this did Aer Lingus have any responsibility?

The dad (because the son is only 12) sues Aer Lingus for damages and Aer Lingus pays an outrageous EUR 70,000 to the son for having done absolutely nothing wrong.

You might think that doesn’t affect you, but guess who will pay the 70,000. Not the Aer Lingus shareholders from their profits! No! Ultimately you and I will pay for it in higher prices.

So you and I pay this 12 year old boy 70,000 because he messed up when he put the lid back on and because the dad didn’t bother to check. Infuriating!!

And why did Aer Lingus pay? Probably because they expected that the judge for some nebulous reasons would decide against them and then the whole mess could cost even more. The possibility that a judge could find Aer Lingus to be guilty – which probably is based on other court cases – is infuriating in itself, by the way.

Judges (in this case Judge Kevin Cross) should have the ability to throw cases like that out immediately! And people who sue anybody in such a scandalous way should be the ones that pay.

Dublin City is Waiving all Library Fines

Dublin City is Waiving all Library Fines

Dublin City has removed all Library Fines from 01 January 2019 and even if you have an outstanding debt, your slate will be wiped clean. The intention is to get more people to use the libraries, but the strategy seems very odd!

Loaning books is free and you only have to pay if you keep them longer than the loan period. Once that period has passed (and I think the period is pretty long 3 weeks!) then you had to pay 5 cent per day up to a maximum of EUR 3. Not super expensive, but a tool to ensure that the books are brought back in time.

How will the waiving of the fees get more people to use the library? Only if they were afraid to use the library because of the fees otherwise nothing will change for them. OR if they stopped using the library because they had a big bill waiting for them.

I VERY much doubt that anyone would not use the library because of a cost of 5 cent per day IF you are late (and by the way, in most cases you can extend the loan period for free over the phone). VERY unlikely that this fear really holds anyone back.

Dublin City Libraries do a great job, but this is a silly strategy that will not bring additional users to the libraries.

www.thejournal.ie/dublin-library-books-fines-4420229-Jan2019/

Failte Ireland lies to International Media!?

Failte Ireland lies to International Media!?

I love Dublin! I am living here for ages and for more than 11 years I wrote a online publication about cultural events in Dublin, but during that time I also have seen how the official groups responsible for tourism (especially in Dublin!) do less and less and expect more and more money to be dropped by tourists.

New Year’s Eve is not the most exciting day of the year in Dublin and if anyone asked me, I would strongly recommend that potential visitors stay far away between 24 December and 02/03 January. It is just sooo disappointing if you go to a city for these celebrated days and there is NOTHING happening.

In previous years some attempts were made to make Dublin a little more interesting at least over New Year with the New Year’s Festival Dublin. It consisted of some events on New Year’s eve (many years ago we even had fireworks!) and then more events and activities on New Year’s Day. But in 2018 all this changed again and it is the poorest and most disappointing events programme for the New Year’s Festival in at least 5, maybe 10 years!

There are just two light shows at Customs House. They are free, but needed tickets (which are all gone) and then there is a gig (not free!!) in the 3Arena. Apart from that there is not a single official event and NO events on New Year’s Day. Private Fireworks are forbidden in Ireland, nobody pays fro public Fireworks, so New Year’s Eve is a Non-Event!

That’s the facts!! But Failte Ireland is of the opinion that the facts shouldn’t get in the way of their “Fake news” marketing!

900 media representatives from 20 countries were invited to come to Ireland just before New Year’s and Failte Ireland is trying to convince them of something that is clearly untrue.

A RTE News article here says:

“The New Year’s Festival in Dublin is set to showcase tourism in the capital, and encourage more people to visit the capital and Ireland in 2019, according to tourism groups.”

“Liam Campbell from Fáilte Ireland’s International Publicity team said this year’s New Year’s Festival promises to be the most impressive end of year celebration Dublin has ever seen.”

What an amount of codswallop!

Do I think people should come to Dublin? Absolutely YES! It is a great place with lots of free and non free events during the year. This is mostly not thanks to Failte Ireland or Dublin City, but luckily we have lots of great people and businesses in Ireland that do a great job. But PLEASE tell people that they should avoid the Christmas and New Year’s period if they don’t want to be disappointed.

Irish Ferries Rosslare Decision – Mock Shock from TDs

Irish Ferries Rosslare Decision – Mock Shock from TDs

Irish Ferries has announced today that they will probably end the Rosslare to France ferry service because the majority of their customers prefers to get to Dublin directly instead of to Rosslare. Makes a lot of sense to most people! Having a service to a location that is not the favourite location and having to provide infrastructure at that unliked location does not make ANY business sense.

First I thought they are just cancelling the service, but when you read the announcement you find out that instead a Cherbourg to Dublin service will be provided. Not sure if they will still go to Le Havre, though.

So not REALLY a big problem, BUT there is immediate outrage from some of our TDs. Brendan Howlin from Labour finds the decision inexplicable. He either didn’t read the Irish Ferries announcement or doesn’t understand business. OR and that is the actual reason for his “mock” outrage: He is a TD that represents an area close to Rosslare. And yes, he is the TD for Wexford. So he needs to be outraged to have a chance to be elected again.

And the other outraged person? It is Sinn Féin’s Brexit spokesperson David Cullinane and – what a surprise – he is from Waterford. He finds the decision “truly baffling”.

Oddly, both claim that the reason for their shock is the upcoming Brexit! :-O Can anybody explain that? Ferries are still going from France to Ireland, but to Dublin instead of Rosslare. How does Brexit come into that? …unless you are afraid of being accused of “navel gazing” (or being only interested in the topic because it could affect your personally) and therefore invent some “bigger” justification than just defending your own patch.

 
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