Dublin firmly in the crosshairs as rural politicians slam the city’s hotel industry for ‘price gouging’

Shane Cassells, the Meath-based Fianna Fáil Senator, simply could not believe the prices of Dublin hotels, as he kicked off a grilling of tourism industry leaders over “price gouging” at an Oireachtas tourism committee meeting on Wednesday. The more the Senator contemplated it, the louder he grew.

Cassells explained he was quoted a room at a certain Dublin hotel for one night next month for €797. Meanwhile, he got flights for his family to Spain for a bit more than €720. “Spain, SPAIN.” And he would have enough left over for a round of drinks for everyone in Temple Bar.

“The price of a steak doesn’t go up on the day of an All-Ireland final,” he said. So why should a Dublin hotel room? He muttered something about exploitation. Then: “EXPLOITATION.” He glared at the industry leaders from the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) and the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (Itic) to see if they had heard his message. They heard him, all right.

Sinn Féin’s Imelda Munster, from Louth, wondered why Dublin hotels on one night next month are, she suggested, three times as expensive as Madrid. “The minute things started to open up, it’s the rip-off again.” She reminded the IHF and Itic that politicians supported cutting the sector’s VAT rate to 9 per cent during the pandemic when they were “crying poverty”, but now the rate is at risk.

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The IHF’s Tim Fenn responded, saying the frothy room rates quoted in the media are just the “last available” rates and most rooms are sold more cheaply, but Munster wasn’t having it.

The committee’s collective battering of tourism industry leaders soon took on a peculiar pattern. There wasn’t a Dublin TD or Senator in the room, and it showed. The rural politicians delighted in slamming the capital. Fine Gael’s Brendan Griffin, based in Kerry, said there is “one particular place where prices are out of control”. And he wasn’t talking about Killarney. “I’m an anorak,” he said. “I check all the websites, not that I’m going anywhere.”

Sinn Féin’s Johnny Mythen, from Wexford, asked why hotels in the capital are so much more expensive than in his constituency. Fianna Fáil’s Christopher Sullivan explained that Dublin hotels were a multiple of the price in Clonakilty and Kinsale. “Can you not rein them in?” he asked Fenn.

Even Fianna Fáil Senator Malcolm Byrne, whose Gorey base is barely a 45-minute drive from the capital, took the same approach. Hotels in Wexford aren’t price-gouging, he insisted, but “ones in Dublin” are. Fenn blamed “media and political commentary” for hyping the situation and leaned repeatedly on his “last available rooms” defence to explain the astronomical prices charged by some.

The punishment beating continued.

Eventually, committee chair, Fianna Fáil’s Niamh Smyth from Cavan (“where they’d kill to have the problems of Dublin hotels”) and Mythen both asked Fenn the same – glaringly obvious – question: what natural law says the price of the “last available” rooms must be hiked so high, when they could always be sold at rates similar to the rest of the rooms?

Fenn looked momentarily stunned. “Supply and demand,” he eventually responded, citing the old industry mantra that means a business will charge as much as it can get away with.