Minimum alcohol pricing is nigh

Usual woman from Alcohol action on with Matt Cooper claiming alcohol costs the country 12 billion a year including health and loss of work place productivity. How do they work out this? She wants a rise in excise duty to pay for this

How do they work out this?

The tried and true method of "Think of a number, double it and add a couple of zeroes".

All sales of alcohol in such places gets opposed by the Vintners ….. pubs are a lost cause ….. the govt needs to stop trying to keep a dead industry alive …… people buy drink in other places ….. pubs are dead ….. lost all sympathy for them when they said during lockdown that no one but them should sell drink …..

You could make the pub prices 3x lower then the supermarket and some people wouldn't go back.

And by the same token, if pub prices went up massively, some people would still only ever go to the pub. Actually pub prices have gone up massively and they still get their regular clientele. Just good luck inviting new people in. Some pubs Ive been in seem to actively discourage new people, come to think of it.

Absolute idiocy, they never back anything up and nobody ever calls them on it either. Honestly they want prohibition and anyone who doesn't accept that is childishly naive.

They could make the duty on it zero and it wouldn't help them.

In a pub recently I was charged 7 euros for a lucozade. And this wasn't in Temple Bar, but a bog standard pub in the midlands. I felt like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction thinking "7 euros? They didn't add some bourbon or something in there as well did they?"

I've always loved a pub session with friends, something about it that's just better than having the same at home (probably the lack of cleaning I've to do) but financially it's gone past the point where it's affordable to do even semi-regularly.

With a taxi, a bit of food and pints looking at nearly €100 just for myself.

MUP is a load of nonsense, it's the price of pints that are keeping people away from pubs not the price of beer in a supermarket/off licence.

Is there a MUP in the pub? Could pubs look to do what the likes of the supermarkets did (particularly Lidl & Aldi) and bring in cheaper alternatives to the usual Diageo and Heineken products?

Would you go to a pub and drink 3 euro pints from Finkbrau (or whatever) rather than spending 6 on a Heineken or Guinness?

If enough customers said they would they the pubs have a viable avenue to drive new business. But I would imagine that it has been looked at previously and the business just wouldn't justify it, as we as consumers simply won't accept it.

I think the pub's would have to remove all diageo products and stick to other products like some micro pubs I've seen in England.. Anyways Imv diageo have far too much power in the marketplace here, like in the beginning of the last century Guinness bought up all the small breweries and wound them down leaving them with almost all the market share.. Then there's pub cartels where I've seen a pub break ranks in a town starting to sell minor brands cheaper, they soon got a visit from a group of publicans in the town

In many ways Irish people are their own worst enemy when it comes to the price of things, because while we in this thread are complaining about the price of drink, there is a massive snobbery regarding Weatherspoons. I remember the thread when Weatherspoons were opening and some of the comments would make you want to weep into your 2.50 Czech pilsner. "It's cheap, with sticky floors, and the bar staff arent friendly" etc etc. There's a sort of suspicion as well… "how could they offer such low prices? They must be up to something!". Obviously not wanting to accept that their local pub has been draining their wallets for years just because they can.

If Boards had been around when Ryanair started doing cheap flights, I'd imagine there would have been similar comments. "There's no way they could do flights to London for 40 quid, when Aer Lingus charge 350 for the same journey. Clearly Ryanair are up to something"…"It's probably just an introductory offer and the prices will go up"…"I dont want to fly on a plane that probably isn't well maintained because the tickets are so cheap"… etc.

I went to the Weatherspoons in Blackrock a few times. No Guinness, but other stouts. Czech and Polish pilsners on tap(which if Im drinking lager draught is what I would rather be drinking anyway!) for 3.50 ~2.50, Chicken and chips for about 8(?) euros. 3 shots for a fiver I think.

Pubs are of course free to buy from other suppliers, but this never happens, as the customers are too loyal to Diageo/Heineken products.

Nothing against Wetherspoons, but some people are happy to pay extra for a better experience.

The Wetherspoons in Blackrock closed down and is replaced by a more expensive, more successful pub.

Wetherspons clearly wasnt offering what the public wanted.

There are no Wetherspoons open outside Dublin now, which shows the reat of ireland isnt buying what Wetherspoons is selling, either.

Nothing against Wetherspoons, but some people are happy to pay extra for a better experience.

That is utter rubbish. Saying people are happy to extra for a better experience, is for when you go to a place thats a bit pricier than you are used to but its a once off or a special occasion. People are not happier to pay a bit extra for a better experience when the most basic experience starts at 4.50-5.

It clearly wasnt offerimg what the public wanted.

Blackrock was completely the wrong place for it as Blackrock is wall to wall with Gastropubs. Swords would be a perfect place for one though.

You may like the cheap places and thats fine. Some people dont. Thats also fine.

You are missing my point. There should be three tiers of pubs to go to.

1. The cheap place
2. The medium price place
3. The more expensive place

If you remove Weatherspoons from the equation, then the cheap place is where pints start at a fiver.