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Sick of the price of coffee

A Dublin-based doctor has contacted PriceWatch to express his concern and frustration at what he believes to be the excessively high prices being charged in hospital cafes, particularly in the two cafes operating at St James's Hospital where he is based. These cafes have a largely captive market and are, he believes, taking advantage of their position to the detriment of some of the most disadvantaged members of our society.

St James's had a new entrance constructed in recent years, which has, according to the doctor, "improved the atmosphere in the hospital considerably". There is one significant downside, however. As part of the redevelopment, Cafe Kylemore opened two cafes, one upstairs and one downstairs, in the new atrium.

He was prompted to get in touch with us when he noticed the price of a latte had climbed to €3 in recent weeks. "Butlers Chocolate Cafe on Grafton St doesn't charge this, even though they could get away with it, given that 90 per cent of their clientele are tourists," he writes. He points out that St James's serves "one of, if not the most, underprivileged populations in Ireland. If well-paid health workers think twice about going for a coffee, I shudder to think what poor patients and their families, many of whom depend on government supports, must think of these prices.

"The prices are totally unwarranted. Both cafes have an ever-present queue, from opening to closing hours, so maintaining ailing profit margins could not be the reason for these increases. I have written, but to no avail, to the manager of the cafe to express my concerns on behalf of the patients and their families," he says.

We contacted Cafe Kylemore, which runs more than 40 restaurants across the country, to see what it had to say.

A spokeswoman said that it was the company's policy to deal directly with the customer when issues of this nature arose and said she would contact our reader, who has also sent a complaint directly to the cafe, to discuss the pricing further. She declined to comment on the prices in the cafe but was keen to point out that "a fundamental guiding principle" of the chain had "always been to offer value to our customers. This is a core value for Kylemore." She expressed her disappointment that a customer had complained.

No phone, no fun

Spare a thought for PriceWatch reader Michael Hanlon from Limerick who has been waiting in vain for the best part of a year for Eircom to hook him up with a phone line. In June of last year he and his wife moved into a newly built home on a housing estate 15 minutes' drive from the centre of Limerick. A month later the couple bought a phone and set about getting a phone line in with Eircom. "It seemed like we would have to pay a connection charge in the region of €50-€120 to get a phone line but as it's the only provider we were willing to pay the necessary charge."

A couple of weeks later an Eircom man arrived to set up the couple's line. He enabled the connector box and then informed them that they could not get a dial tone as the estate - made up of 30 houses - was not yet connected to the exchange.

"We waited patiently for this to happen without any luck. In November, we spoke to an Eircom worker on the site and asked if he was connecting the estate up, to which he replied, 'no - that probably won't be done 'til after Christmas'."

Hanlon was also told he could expect his connection by February and again by the middle of April but all these promises were for nothing and he is still hanging on for his telephone. He says that for the last seven or eight months he has been frequently contacting the foreman in charge of the building work at the estate to see if he knew what the delay is as the builders have a role to play in the process.

"In December I was assured that all preparatory works had been done by the builders and that it was Eircom which was delaying the process."

We called the company ourselves to find out what the delay was and when he could expect to be connected. A spokeswoman said that, when Hanlon's housing estate was built, Eircom needed to completely replace the existing communications infrastructure in the village.

"This required the construction of a completely new distribution cabinet followed by the installation of a substantial amount of new ducting and cabling. We are currently in the final stages of laying the exchange cabling and we will begin to finalise the cabling to the estate in the coming weeks.

"Our current estimates show that service will be provided to customers who have ordered service from Eircom in the estate in the next four weeks at the absolute latest."

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Phoney insurance

On holiday in France a couple of years ago, my wife's phone was stolen when our hire car was broken into. O2's insurance company wouldn't accept the claim because it wasn't in a locked glove compartment or the boot. We cancelled both our policies on the spot. - GerryOS

Phone insurance is about as useful as travel insurance purchased from an airline company. Next we'll have Dublin Bus offering us knock-down policies for traffic jams (exclusions will of course include peak times and anything within a 35-mile radius of the M50). When I lost a phone I went straight onto eBay and purchased a sim-free handset from the US at a third of the price of one here. It worked a treat. - That Girl