READERS' FORUM:Have your say
WHILE MOST users of Dublin Airport have been preoccupied by volcanic dust, cancelled flights, refunds and reimbursements over the last ten days, it’s been the airport’s “panini-gate” as it has become known (by Pricewatch anyway) that has troubled readers more this week.
A couple of weeks back we were contacted by someone who was most unhappy to be asked for more than €9 for a ham salad panini. An airport spokeswoman subsequently contacted us to say that, while she could not comment on the cost of the sandwich our reader had bought, “as he had not provided information about the outlet where he’d bought it”, she had carried out a check of the prices among all the food outlets in the airport, and said the cost of a panini was €6.95.
Well, our reader was prompted to get in touch again with a clarification. “I can confirm that the outlet in question was the main cafeteria overlooking the check-in area and the cost of the plain ham salad panini was €8.80 and 25 cent each for the two sachets of mayonnaise.”
He says that, while the airport spokeswoman was correct in saying that there were other offers for sandwiches at a lower cost, “I noticed during my visit that these are all nearer the departure gates and not in the main cafeteria. I would argue that the offers quoted by the spokeswoman of a sandwich or a roll for €3.49 and a sandwich, soft drink and a packet of crisps for €3.99 only highlight the exorbitant cost of a plain ham salad panini at €8.80 in the main cafeteria.”
And that's not all. A second reader, who had bought The Irish Timesin London, had a similar priced sandwich in the airport last year. "Over €9," she says.
“I had chicken and cheese on mine. I think the extra cheese was what did it. I was dumbstruck. I remember having €10 ready to pay for a sandwich and a packet of crisps and it was €11 or something mad like that. Needless to say, I haven’t gone back since on any of my visits home.”
She says that the “offending outlet was the food place upstairs after security. It was a deli that made your sandwich to order. I appreciate that a made-to-order sandwich will be more expensive and the cheese will have bumped up the cost. But €9!”
We did make efforts to contact Dublin Airport to find out more about the pricey paninis but they were understandably busy last week dealing with the hangover from the volcanic ash cloud.
Bashing Greens over biofuels is not fair
LAST WEEK we carried an item on petrol in which Tom Noonan of Maxol was critical of the Green Party’s reversal of its support for biofuels in recent years. The article prompted Michelle Rogers to get in touch.
She points out that everyone thought biofuels were a good idea “until it was realised how destructive they would be for the environment to grow them, destroying important habitats around the world and using land that is needed to grow food. It is now accepted that they will be a bad option. So why would he criticise the Greens for not taking this on board when it became clear? Noonan is hardly somebody without an interest in people using petrol, diesel or biofuels, but electric cars might not be so good for Maxol.”
She said that moaning about petrol prices and carbon taxes when we are poised to destroy the climate, irreversibly, for several thousand years with predicted massive species extinction, starvation, drought and floodings, is mind-boggling. But I suppose it’s in line with the Irish character: grab what you can now, put morality on the back boiler and let future generations pay the price.”
Tesco needs to get its weighing scales out
A READER from the west bought some own-brand Greek feta from Tesco not long ago and feels he was stung.
“On the packet, it gives a weight of 200g. My wife was a bit sceptical about the fact that the slice had a corner missing but I told her it had been chopped to fit the 200g,” he writes.
The couple decided to check the weight and were less than impressed when they discovered that the piece of cheese, still wrapped in 5-6g of plastic, “weighed a mere 196g. I assumed that the 200g corresponded to the cheese itself, not the final product; which would mean that I was sold a piece of cheese 10g lighter than should be, equivalent to 5 per cent missing.” He asks if the wrapping should be considered as part of the 200g? We say no. He says it may not be “much for me, but you and I can imagine what a catch it is for Tesco! How can Tesco get away with it?”
