Sounding off: Recently Róisín Stapleton went in search of a one-way train ticket to take her back to Dublin after spending a weekend with her family in Mayo.

When she asked about the price at the Irish Rail office in Castlebar she was told that a one-way fare was €30 while a return cost €42. As her "more impoverished younger brother" had plans to visit her for a weekend soon afterwards, she decided to buy the return ticket and allow him to use it on the return leg of his journey, saving himself €12.

This makes economic sense everywhere but trainland. When Stapleton's brother went looking for his one-way ticket from Castlebar to Dublin last Friday he was told that "there was no such thing on a Friday" and that passengers were obliged to pay €42 regardless of whether they intended to use the return leg or not. Stapleton points out that for road safety and environmental reasons "one would expect to be offered an incentive to use public transport for longer journeys and at weekends, but it would seem that, using a very particular form of Irish logic, one is in fact penalised. Any insight that could throw some light on whatever form of logic informed this policy would be greatly appreciated."

So we contacted the train people to find out what was going on. A spokeswoman said that Irish Rail offered a €30 "discount day-saver fare" from Monday to Thursday and on Saturdays. On Fridays and Sundays, which are obviously the busiest days, the discount is withdrawn and only two fares are available - the €42 single fare and the €45 monthly return. So, while our reader's brother was wrong when he said that Irish Rail don't sell one-way tickets on Fridays, they do seem to price them in such a way as to render them very poor value indeed.

Football focus

We were delighted when Brian from Galway recently sent us a couple of tickets for the Galway vs Mayo match in the Connacht Championship. Our joy at the unsolicited freebie was short-lived, however, when we realised that the match was over and he had sent in the tickets to illustrate a dramatic rise in the cost of supporting his team since last year. "A stand ticket for the Galway vs Sligo game in the football championship on May 21st, 2006 was €25," he writes. "A ticket in the same seat for the Galway vs Mayo game on May 20th, 2007 was €30 this year. Both games took place in Pearse Stadium, Salthill." We contacted the Connacht GAA to find out why prices had increased by so much in such a short space of time.

A spokesman for the GAA in Connacht defended this year's higher price and said it basically came down to supply and demand. He said that while the Galway vs Sligo game last year was only attended by 6,000 people, the Galway vs Mayo match, which was a repeat of last year's Connacht final, was a sell-out, with 30,000 tickets snapped up. He said that while prices increased for the 4,000 stand tickets, they had remained static for the terraces in Pearse Stadium.

Music to our ears

David Power from Lucan has got in touch with rare news of a genuine bargain. The Doors back catalogue has been reissued by Elektra/Rhino Records/WEA, a move which involved the remaining Doors members and the original producers remastering the tracks from the original tapes.

"Among other things, they reinstated items that were censored from the original albums," says Power, and the sleeves include new notes and custom CD cases plus bonus tracks.

"All of the above normally results in the price of re-released back-catalogue discs increasing towards the €20 mark, but these reissues are available for €9.99. WEA are to be congratulated," he says. He stresses that he has no connection with any record company and is of the opinion that that this is the way the music industry should be marketing music: "Flogging non-CD-quality music on the internet for a euro per track is not the way forward."

Bagel bonus

Recently we reviewed five brands of bagel, but it was a brand we did not include that prompted a number of readers to get in touch. "I was surprised to note that Broadway Bagels (made in Dungarvan, Co Waterford and available in the freezer sections at most Tesco stores) wasn't included in your PriceWatch," writes Mary Delaney. She says they are "very good. An added bonus is we are able to support a quality product that is Irish-made. My only gripe is that they are not more widely available."