Govt ‘will have to stem flow of shoppers across border’

[Guest128]

[broken link removed]

Really not happy with this drivel out of the government. They need to make shopping attractive in ROI BY REDUCING RIDICULOUS PRICES. It really makes my blood boil them telling us to shop in ROI when we are perfectly entitled to shop in NI, for much better value. They should investigate why there is such a huge difference in the prices that are the reason for people going up there, not think of ways to stop people.
As an example of why my shopping will be done in Eniskillen/Belfast/Newry in the coming weeks:

e.g. In a well know clothes shop on Grafton St (its name is that of a tropical storm) yesterday Maude Flanders was llooking at an item that was priced in both pounds and euro.....£110 and €170. All might seem fine until you do a quick conversion of £110 using the current exchange rate.....€129.06.

How can the minister explain almost a €41 difference? Why would you not shop in the North when one purchase immediately covers petrol and eating out for lunch??

Other stores are much more sneaky and remove the sterling prices/cover them up so we cannot see how much we are being overcharged by compared to our NI and UK counteparts.

Similarly the Irish Daily Star....I bought a copy at 60p in when I was in BallyCastle in Antrim a month ago, that equates to 70c. But low and behond, us mugs down here at paying €1.35 for it.....again HOW is that justifiable?

BTW is outside the bounds of possibility to attempt to pay the £ price since the store left it on it? I had a bit of sterling in my pocket and was tempted to try it.....

 

[micmclo]

e.g. In a well know clothes shop on Grafton St (its name is that of a tropical storm) yesterday Maude Flanders was llooking at an item that was priced in both pounds and euro.....£110 and €170. All might seem fine until you do a quick conversion of £110 using the current exchange rate.....€129.06.

It's clear you're talking about Monsoon, just name the store, you're not exactly naming and shaming it.

BTW is outside the bounds of possibility to attempt to pay the £ price since the store left it on it? I had a bit of sterling in my pocket and was tempted to try it.....

You already know the answer to this. Don't make some shop assistants life difficult, it's not their fault.
Talk to management if you don't like the price

Similarly the Irish Daily Star....I bought a copy at 60p in when I was in BallyCastle in Antrim a month ago, that equates to 70c. But low and behond, us mugs down here at paying €1.35 for it.....again HOW is that justifiable?

You deserve for buying a rag like the Star!
A lot of newspapers do this, the Irish Times and Irish Independant certainly do it as the UK and NI are not their main market plus there might be the two main papers here but there's huge competition in the UK.

But then is the Star even an Irish paper?
For sure the Irish Daily Mail and the Irish Sun are basically the same version of the paper with maybe some different stories and different sports. But realy just the same paper. There's even a Scottish Sun
So that's more of an example of profiteering

 

[ubiquitous]

[broken link removed]

Really not happy with this drivel out of the government. They need to make shopping attractive in ROI BY REDUCING RIDICULOUS PRICES .

Fair enough. Would you support a move on their part to cut wages here by 15% or so, in return?

ps please don't shout.

 

[z104]

Fair enough. Would you support a move on their part to cut wages here by 15% or so, in return?

ps please don't shout.

No, I would not take a pay cut. I think it's easier to take our high wages down here and spend them over the border

 

[Sunny]

I loved this line from Gormley.

Speaking to reporters in Dublin today, the minister said it was important for Ireland the UK to ensure their actions are "in sync" to ensure neither gains a competitive advantage.

I guess we shouldn't mention Corporation tax then. The guy and his party are a complete waste of space.

 

[ubiquitous]

No, I would not take a pay cut. I think it's easier to take our high wages down here and spend them over the border

Grand, once you're happy not to whinge about it. From what I see, too many others want to have their cake and eat it.

 

[Guest128]

Fair enough. Would you support a move on their part to cut wages here by 15% or so, in return?
ps please don't shout.

Well the forum is called Letting off Steam

If you were to take 15% off the €170 it's still only €145!! Still far above the conversion rate. I'm not saying shops should not make a profit, thats just silly. But there has to be some give and take. What is annoying is that its not right for the minister to insinuate that its entirely the consumer's fault that they are going to the North when retailers are garnering huge profits and the government seems blissfully unaware (or else dont care).

 

[Ciaraella]

I was in a shop yesterday on Grafton Street where a British customer (judging by accent) was told by a shop assistant that she could pay the sterling price on an item using sterling, this doesn't seem fair to me, surely then we could argue to pay the sterling price by credit card if it was the case that we could choose which price to pay?

 

[z104]

Grand, once you're happy not to whinge about it. From what I see, too many others want to have their cake and eat it.

I never quiet got this phrase.

If you had a cake, why wouldn't you want to eat it

 

[Guest128]

I was in a shop yesterday on Grafton Street where a British customer (judging by accent) was told by a shop assistant that she could pay the sterling price on an item using sterling, this doesn't seem fair to me, surely then we could argue to pay the sterling price by credit card if it was the case that we could choose which price to pay?

That is what I was thinking, when I said was it worth a shot. All they can say is no and all I can say then is OK and leave the item back. Its not something I really thought much about before, just I had the sterling and with the price difference....

 

[Guest128]

I never quiet got this phrase.

If you had a cake, why wouldn't you want to eat it

Ditto.....should it not be "eat your cake and still have it afterwards"

 

[ubiquitous]

Well the forum is called Letting off Steam

Why are you confused? LOS is a discussion forum, which invariably means that opinions expressed here are discussed, analysed and sometimes criticised.

To take a different example, if I make a racist comment here, I cannot then claim that my comment should be immune from criticism as the forum is called Letting off Steam.

 

[ubiquitous]

I never quiet got this phrase.

If you had a cake, why wouldn't you want to eat it

Me neither. You're right.

 

[Guest128]

Why are you confused? LOS is a discussion forum, which invariably means that opinions expressed here are discussed, analysed and sometimes criticised.

To take a different example, if I make a racist comment here, I cannot then claim that its okay to do so as the forum is called Letting off Steam.

Obviously, but racism is offensive everywhere!......putting the words "Reduce ridiculous prices" in capitals hardly offended the entire country!

I was under the impression that LOS was a slightly lighter discussion forum where you discussed things that annoy you and and I was annoyed when I posted. Sometimes I let off steam by shouting, its quite therapeutic. If I had the minister here right now I'd probably shout at him too!

I am perfectly aware of email etiquette etc. regarding shouting so I apologise if you took offense.

 

[ubiquitous]

You still didn't answer my question

"Would you support a move on their part to cut wages here by 15% or so, in return?"

What is annoying is that its not right for the minister to insinuate that its entirely the consumer's fault that they are going to the North when retailers are garnering huge profits and the government seems blissfully unaware (or else dont care).

If you buy any newspaper today (yes, even the Star ) you will quickly learn that far from "garnering huge profits", the ROI retail sector is in dire trouble, and is ready to shed large numbers of jobs in the coming months.

I am perfectly aware of email etiquette etc. regarding shouting so I apologise if you took offense.

Don't worry, you didn't offend me, its just that users are requested in the posting guidelines to refrain from shouting, as it is "considered at best hard to read and at worst rude "

 

[Guest128]

You still didn't answer my question

"Would you support a move on their part to cut wages here by 15% or so, in return?"



Don't worry, you didn't offend me, its just that users are requested in the posting guidelines to refrain from shouting, as it is "considered at best hard to read and at worst rude "

LOL, actually the guideline title is
"Please don't post a subject or message in ALL UPPER CASE CHARACTERS"

so its a matter of opinion if I am in breach of any guideline

Regarding the 15% question....no. If I take a 15% cut then the shop would need to reduce the cost of the item by 15%+ to make any difference and I just don't we would see that and prices wouldnt drop at the same rate.

5 years ago people would almost laugh if you said you shopped in Lidl/Aldi, now its very prevalent, if not the norm in many households, so consumer spending is at an all major low. Cutting wages by 15% will not help, as not all costs are driven by wages. Granted in small/medium business it is a major factor, but for large chains like Monsoon (there I said it!!) etc. there is an unacceptable level of profiteering and I dont think people should have to take a wage cut to iron it out.

 

[ubiquitous]

LOL, actually the guideline title is
"Please don't post a subject or message in ALL UPPER CASE CHARACTERS"

so its a matter of opinion if I am in breach of any guideline

If you read the guideline, not its title, you might come to a different conclusion. Anyway we'll move on.

Regarding the 15% question....no. If I take a 15% cut then the shop would need to reduce the cost of the item by 15%+ to make any difference and I just don't we would see that and prices wouldnt drop at the same rate.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

not all costs are driven by wages.

No, but most are, in some shape or form.

but for large chains like Monsoon (there I said it!!) etc. there is an unacceptable level of profiteering

How come this does not apply in the UK, where most of their trade is? Btw, most high-street chains are struggling badly in the UK as well, hence the VAT cut over there.

 

[TarfHead]

Deputy Gormley is evidently learning from spending time in Government with Fianna Fáil. That is a classic FF approach 'someone really should do something about that'.

There is a serious issue here. Hundreds or thousands of individual purchasing decisions are benefitting the UK economy, at the cost of the welfare of Irish people. Irish people are very adept at disconnecting between cause and effect when it suits their purpose. There would be no drug gangs without a demand for drugs, yet there are people in this country who think that a weekend toot up the nose in Dublin is unconnected to murders in Limerick.

That is not to attempt to establish an equivalence between the drugs trade, and cross-border shopping, rather to illustrate a the point made above.

Spending thousands, or tens of thousands, on goods in the North impacts upon VAT revenues in our country. Without, or facing a reduction in, VAT revenues means cutting public services. There has to be some level of causality between cross-border shopping and public service cutbacks.

As documented in the active thread on boards.ie on shopping in Northern Ireland, the amount of spirits that people are claiming to buy in the North is creating a liver damage timebomb for this country in the future !

Comparing UK prices to EUR, at the current market rate, is a specious argument.

Comparing the price of an item in Grafton Street, with something that could be bought in Newry (and an implict assumption that the underlying costs of business in each location are the same) is also a specious argument.

 

[z105]

Govt ‘will have to stem flow of shoppers across border’

Was it not Mary Harney who told us to "shop around"?

 

[Sunny]

Deputy Gormley is evidently learning from spending time in Government with Fianna Fáil. That is a classic FF approach 'someone really should do something about that'.

There is a serious issue here. Hundreds or thousands of individual purchasing decisions are benefitting the UK economy, at the cost of the welfare of Irish people. Irish people are very adept at disconnecting between cause and effect when it suits their purpose. There would be no drug gangs without a demand for drugs, yet there are people in this country who think that a weekend toot up the nose in Dublin is unconnected to murders in Limerick.

That is not to attempt to establish an equivalence between the drugs trade, and cross-border shopping, rather to illustrate a the point made above.

Spending thousands, or tens of thousands, on goods in the North impacts upon VAT revenues in our country. Without, or facing a reduction in, VAT revenues means cutting public services. There has to be some level of causality between cross-border shopping and public service cutbacks.

As documented in the active thread on boards.ie on shopping in Northern Ireland, the amount of spirits that people are claiming to buy in the North is creating a liver damage timebomb for this country in the future !

Comparing UK prices to EUR, at the current market rate, is a specious argument.

Comparing the price of an item in Grafton Street, with something that could be bought in Newry (and an implict assumption that the underlying costs of business in each location are the same) is also a specious argument.

I am sorry but I can't agree. People are doing nothing wrong by going up North to do the shopping. If we are to use your argument then Ireland should be made raise their corporation tax or else companies should be stoped from ploughing profits through here at the expense of other Countries tax revenues. Would you like to see that happen? Its a free market and it is up to businesses here and the government to react and make us more competitive. The Government didn't exactly help by raising VAT and sticking more duty on wine for example.