Contract to print 'shop local' flyers given to firm in the North

Sleipnir

I really don't know what to say.
These people are living in a different reality to the rest of us.

Dundalk Chamber of Commerce awarded a contract to print flyers encouraging people to shop locally to a company based in Newry, Co Down.

The leaflets promoting the local chamber's 'Dundalk Fighting Back' campaign featured ads from more than a dozen local retailers and businesses which purported to show that prices in the border town were the same as or cheaper than their counterparts in Northern Ireland.

But local printers claimed that the chamber was being hypocritical by encouraging people to shop locally whilst going across the border themselves to get a better deal. But chamber CEO Bill Tosh was unrepentant, claiming the message in the Easter promotion was not to discourage people from going across the border but rather to open their eyes to the value that can be had locally.

"The message wasn't shop locally but that here are 12 better value options here," he told the Irish Independent last night.

Expensive

"We wanted to uncover the myth that things are more expensive in Dundalk (than the North)," he said.

But he conceded the decision to go with the Newry printer was an economic one. "It is an open market and we had to take the best value," he said.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/contract-to-print-shop-local-flyers-given-to-uk-firm-1725716.html

bcmf

Dear oh dear.
Though its nothing new.I remember some years ago when the printing industry was going down the ****ter the contract for printing the phone book and yellow pages went abroad.
Hypocrisy in all levels of power .

MysticalRain

The effort was doomed before it even started.:D

AARRRGH

This country is a joke.

I was reading yesterday how Mary Harney has a credit card with a monthly limit of 50k.

The people in power are simply taking the piss now.

They know they are answerable to no one (the public are too jaded to care) so they do whatever they want.

I wish it was incompetence but I think they just don't care.

Nody

I wonder if this may not fall under the competition rule of EU though; i.e. any company in all of EU has the right to bid for a government contract and the best suited gets it no matter where they are located.

SeanW

Yes, but a private organisation (which I think Chambers of Commerce are) can select a supplier in any way they like. Not that I object to that, but it's a little bit silly telling Dundlak people to "shop local" on leaflets printed in Newry.

Daithinski

Thats the problem (well, one of them) with this country.

At the moment we have the rich and powerful telling us to "do as I say, not as I do".

This is yet another example of the contempt that the general public of this country is held in.

johnnyskeleton

Didn't FF in or around the same week as Brian Lenihan told us to do our patriotic duty and shop at home, enter a contract with a US based web design firm to make their website? There are plenty of Irish web design firms, but they wanted to get the company that made Obama's website and hadn't a thought for Irish companies.

I see it as a mandate to shop abroad, not only when the service abroad is cheaper, but also when its better, and I will only shop at home when I have to.

I need to buy a new phone at the moment, and its killing me because the Irish providers fleece you so badly compared with the North. If only it were possible to get a phone that works in the entire Island.

dathainski wrote:

At the moment we have the rich and powerful telling us to "do as I say, not as I do".

Indeed, another facet of this is the government continuously telling us to be a knowledge economy even though they wouldn't go near anything more high-tech than an abacus and all the while they do nothing to incentivise high-tech jobs while giving massive incentives to builders, developers and public servants.

Digi_Tilmitt

"A capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with" comes to mind.

MavisDavis

"It is an open market and we had to take the best value."

So do the rest of us, Bill. The "Shop Dundalk" campaign is a joke and it no longer has any support from me. Mr. Tosh, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Disease Ridden

What a Tosher