The price fixer

Eddie Hobbs knew RTÉ’s Rip Off Republic would court controversy. He just wasn’t prepared for how much, he tells Harry McGee.

A MONTH ago, the first two paragraphs of this piece would have been a reporter's photo-fit piecing together a picture of the prime suspect.

Forty-two. Glasses. Slick-straight brown hair. Sounds like a guy speaking through a traffic cone. Worse. Speaks with a Cork accent. Sometimes goes under the alias of the People's Champion.