A pint of Guinness now costs around €9 in some Dublin pubs, while Waterford punters can find one from €4.50.
As huge crowds descend on the capital today and toast our patron saint, they would do well to check the prices in the bars of their choice.
The Irish Independent surveyed 100 pubs in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Drogheda and found that the most expensive pint was at The Temple Bar pub in the resort town of the same name, reports Independent.
A pint of the black stuff will set you back €8.95 – €1.35 more than it did a year ago.
In the city of Waterford, The Exchange Bar charges customers €4.50 for a pint of Guinness, but raises the price to 30p on weekdays and weekends from 7pm when a band entertains customers. This was the cheapest pint in our survey.
Publican Tom Mulligan said: “We decided we’d take some slack ourselves because everything has gone up for everyone. We’re watching pubs around here close down on a Monday and Tuesday night, or in the daytime. Some pubs are opening Wednesday to Sunday or from Thursday to Sunday. We don’t want to see that happen here. We have staff to look after,” reports Independent.
He said tourists complained to Mulligan about prices “very expensive” in bars “on the other side of the Liffey,” reports Independent.
A spokesman for the Licensed Vintners’ Association (LVA) said that, as a trade association, competition rules prevented it from playing any role in relation to price fixing.
A Cork city pub employee said: “We had to put the price of a pint up because the cost of buying it went up in February, and with Vat and a profit margin to think about, there was no choice. People just don’t go out midweek any more,” reports Independent.
A staff member at a pub in Limerick city that charges €5.40 for a pint of Guinness said that while he was being “kept busy”, he was battling inflation.
In Galway city, a bar charging €5.80 for a pint was forced to raise its prices after staff received a 7% cost-of-living hike last October.
In January, a Diageo spokesperson referred to the price hike, saying: “Like many businesses in Ireland, we’re facing significant inflation in input costs across our operations. We have absorbed these costs for as long as possible, but unfortunately, we can no longer continue to do so,” reports Independent.
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.