Welcome to rip-off Ireland

AS shadow minister for arts, tourism and non-sequiturs, Jimmy Deenihan is labouring under an misapprehension if he thinks that non-nationals are too prominent in our hospitality sector.

Or that tourists come here primarily “To speak to Irish people”.

In fact, they come for the weather, the rip-off prices, the stale limp food, short measures, drink, car insurance, bullet trains, snide comments and to sample the cosmopolitan atmosphere (acquired by doing two laps of the Ring Of Kerry) - services the likes of which simply can’t be found for love or money in their own native homes.