Our rip-off nation has the worst poverty rates in EU

NOW it’s official: we have the highest cost of living in the eurozone. Nobody should really be surprised.

We have traditionally thought of countries like France and Italy as being much more expensive than here. People came back for the World Cup in Italy in 1990 with tales of horror at the cost of everything there. But now that we have adopted the euro, people are coming back with the opposite tales of amazement. They went expecting to pay more - and maybe if they were paying millions of lira they might still think they were paying more - but they are aghast to find that it would actually have cost them so much more if they just walked down to the nearest restaurant at home.

The concerted effort to build up tourism in this country did not really begin until the 1950s. I grew up in Tralee, at a time when it was off the tourist map but in the heart of the tourist region. Some tourists merely passed through en route to Killarney or Dingle, but then a number of enterprising people came up with the idea of a festival to try to put the town on the tourist map.

As the first of the festivals, the Rose of Tralee was a great success. For a week the population of the town swelled by a multiple of as much as 10. Every hotel bed and B&B was full for the week. The three Gaelic football clubs set up campsites on their grounds, and they were practically full too.

Many people took in paying guests, and some even managed to get money out of desperate people who were prepared to pay to sleep on the floor or under stairs. Pubs hiked up their prices, and some even had a cover charge to get in. Many complained that they had to charge more because they had to hire extra staff, but, of course, that was because they were doing so much extra business. It became part of a great rip-off. The television aspect of the whole thing remains, but the crowds are gone.

Some of those most involved in the success of the project long ago moved on to other things, such as the construction of a new golf links and the Aqua Dome, which have been particularly successful in attracting tourists. The golf course is ranked as one of the finest links in the world.

In recent years the British Open, which is always played on a links course, has sparked tremendous interest in links golf, and this has provided a great boost for Irish courses and tourism in general.

Golf attracts American visitors on the shoulders of the traditional tourist season - in late April and May as well as in September and even early October. As a result, the tourist season now extends from March to mid-October in some places.

The Tralee course has become so popular that it has been deliberately cutting down on visitors by raising green fees. It currently costs a visitor €150 to play a round, and that will rise to €160 next year, and even that is a bargain in comparison with a few other Irish courses.

Few Irish people would pay that kind of money to play a round of golf, so the people paying the green fees are mainly Americans.

Are we selling our souls for the almighty dollar?

More and more Irish people who can afford to go away on holiday are no longer going to traditional Irish resorts, unless they have a holiday home there. Instead, they are going abroad because it is much cheaper and it frequently has the added attraction of more dependable weather.

Having driven the Irish holidaymaker away, we are in grave danger of driving away the Yanks too. They feel that they are not only being ripped off on green fee prices, but also in the restaurants and hotels: eating out here costs more than twice as much as in the United States.

We are rapidly earning the reputation as a nation of greedy gougers. Our tourist authorities say that visitor numbers to this country are up but they are not staying as long because of our prices. Decoded, that means, “we’re bringing them in, but the gougers are driving them out”.

BUT are they really bringing them in, or are they counting as short-stay visitors the tens of thousands of American soldiers who have been passing through Shannon airport on their way to and from Iraq?

Our consumer price inflation has exceeded the average of the eurozone for each of the past seven years. In the last four years the inflation rate in Ireland has been more than double that of the EU - going up by 17.5% in comparison to 8.4%. We must compete on the international market and, at the rate we are going, we are pricing ourselves out of that market.

Of course, some of the people who have been making most money do not even live here any more; they are tax exiles. They won’t give a damn about the people living here. But then, does our Government either? It has been failing pathetically in its duty to ensure that the fruits of the Celtic Tiger economy are evenly spread.

Not only do we have the highest cost of living in the eurozone, but we also have the greatest percentage of people at risk of poverty. This is the index of people who have to live on less than half the average annual income. Some 15% are rated at risk of poverty throughout the EU, but the figure is 21% for this country.

The Government has also been failing to protect us from the legal profession, which has been fostering a litigation culture that is adding to the cost of living and destroying our competitiveness.

We were the laughing stock of the world with the Army deafness claims, especially with the Army Band claiming damages for deafening themselves with their own music. It would be funny if it were not so expensive.

Many lawyers are now taking on frivolous cases on a “no foal, no fee” basis on behalf of indigent clients, because they know that it is cheaper for defendants to settle than to win in court, because even when they win, they end up paying their own lawyers, as such plaintiffs are unable to pay the costs awarded against them.

This is legalised extortion. Much of it could be eliminated if the losing lawyers were held responsible for the court costs of frivolous cases. By representing those clients, they are essentially advising them to pursue the case, so they should be held responsible for the bad advice and for clogging up the courts.

And now we have the farcical suit being taken by prisoners, who include some of the country’s most vicious criminals. They are suing because they do not have en-suite facilities in prison. And to top it off, some prison guards are also suing because of trauma that they suffered in the slopping out process.

If they get away with this, every constipated crank in the country will be looking to take some action.