Here’s a fun game for you to play on this fine St Patrick’s Day. Google the words “most expensive” and “Ireland” and see what happens.
Actually, we have done it for you. What happens is that you are presented with a long list of all the things that cost more in Ireland than they do in other places. Our little country is more often than not found top of the charts, or close to it.
Last summer, when the statisticians at Eurostat released their annual assessment of how much things cost across Europe, it emerged that dear old Ireland was the second most expensive country in Europe and 42 per cent above the average.
The study, based on surveys covering more than 2,000 consumer goods and services, showed Ireland dropping one place, with the dearer Danes retaking the top spot they had lost to us a year earlier.
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Ireland finished ahead of countries such as Luxembourg (134 per cent), Finland (124 per cent), Sweden (114 per cent), France (110 per cent) and Germany (109.6 per cent).
We were the most expensive EU country for alcohol and tobacco, with prices 211 per cent of the EU average – that was explained by much higher taxes on such products here.
Prices in restaurants and hotels were 28 per cent above the EU average, while energy cost 18 per cent more. Transport was 15 per cent higher here, food 11 per cent and 8 per cent for household appliances and electronic devices.
It was worse again when it came to communications, including mobile phones, with Irish prices found to be 42 per cent above the EU average.
The only area Irish consumers were paying less than EU average was in clothing, where prices were 4 per cent below the prices typically paid elsewhere.
[ Dublin is ninth most expensive city in Europe to live and fourth for rental costsOpens in new window ]
There have been other surveys looking at how pricey Ireland is. At the start of the year the number crunchers at stats website Numbeo declared Dublin to be the ninth most expensive city in which to live in Europe.
The rankings are based on prices of consumer goods such as groceries, restaurants, transportation, utilities and rent across 141 cities, from Aachen in Germany to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, with cities given an index reading relative to living costs in New York city.
Zurich was the dearest place in Europe with an index reading of 84.1, meaning costs were almost 16 per cent below the largest US city by population with Geneva, Lausanne, Basle and Berne occupying four of the next six spots.
London was fifth, with a reading of 72.6. Dublin registered a reading of 58.7.
Another study, from Bunq, found that Dublin was up there with the most expensive places to live and work remotely and was pricier across a range of metrics than Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and more than two dozen other capitals.
It is also more than three times more expensive for people to establish a temporary working base than the cheapest capitals in Europe, the research suggests.
The only big city found to be more expensive for so-called digital nomads to set up shop is London.
Bunq’s Working Abroad Index analyses multiple data from open sources. It suggests the average monthly expenses in Dublin for a growing cohort of people who work remotely across international borders have risen to €2,633.78 in 2024, a small jump on last year’s figure but enough to put Dublin into an unenviable second place in the price league.
10 ways Ireland is making us poorer
All this data has got us thinking ahead of St Patrick’s Day about the high price of everything. Here are 10 ways we seem to end up paying more.
1. In the 1940s and 1950s, when Ireland didn’t have an arse in its trousers, we managed to build thousands of decent homes, and normal people on normal salaries could afford to buy them. In the early 1960s a three-bedroom semi on the fringes of Glasnevin cost £2,000 (€2,540). That amounted to twice a middling household income. Adjusted for inflation, that three-bed semi should cost no more than €100,000 today. It actually costs closer to €500,000.
Any first-time buyer needs to have saved about €40,000 while often paying rent of more than €2,000 a month for a couple, and maintaining an impeccable current account. And they have to do all that while house prices climb by about 10 per cent each year or the guts of €4,000 every month – and there aren’t many young (or older) people who can afford to save €4,000 a month just to keep up with property price inflation.
It is not much better for renters. According to Numbeo Dublin is the fourth most expensive city in Europe to rent behind London, Zurich and Geneva.
Average monthly rents in Dublin were €2,294-€2,704, depending on location, in the third quarter of 2024, according to the most recent figures from property website Daft.ie. The national average was €1,955.
But those renting and looking to buy are the lucky ones, at least compared with the homeless. At the end of last month there were 15,286 people in emergency accommodation – an increase of about 500 on the previous month’s figure. Almost 100 additional children in more than 70 families entered emergency accommodation, the official figures show.
2. Healthcare can be free in Ireland but it can also be wildly expensive and sometimes entirely inaccessible. Waiting lists in the public system – in emergency departments and in general wards and for elective treatments – can be ludicrously – even dangerously – long, despite the fact that the State is apparently richer than it has ever been.
That has caused more and more people to view private health insurance as a necessity but the price of that has been climbing alarmingly in recent years. Multiple hikes from all the leading providers has left more than two million people worse off by hundreds of euro annually. And worse is to come, with the price increases coming every six months.
[ Rising premiums a poor prognosis for health insurance customersOpens in new window ]
3. As anyone who has ever found themselves wandering the aisles of a supermarket chain in the UK, the prices can differ wildly from the prices in the Republic. And there are no prizes for guessing who pays more. We had a quick look at the Tesco websites in the Republic and the UK last week and were less than pleased to find that a 750ml bottle of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, which costs shoppers in Dundalk €6, costs shoppers in nearby Newry £3.40 (€4.04). A 12-pack of Pedigree dog food was priced at £4.50 (€5.34) while the price in the Republic was €9. The per-kilogramme price of Kerrygold butter when sold in smaller sizes in the UK was £10.40 (€12.34) while in the Republic it was €12.73 – not a huge price discrepancy but, come on, it comes from the Republic.
It is the same for other supermarkets that serve the Irish and UK markets. Retailers will say they are different markets with different overheads but we’re not buying it – actually we have no choice but to buy it but we can be grumpy about it. The cost of groceries is inching up again, with inflation across Irish supermarkets put at just under 4 per cent compared with the same period last year, new figures suggest.
Despite optimism last year that the cost-of-living crisis was coming to an end, prices have started to climb again, according to data from retail analysts Kantar Worldpanel.
Its figures point to a 0.3 per cent increase in grocery inflation to 3.7 per cent over a 12-week period to the end of February.
That means many households will have seen the cost of their groceries climb by well over 20 per cent compared with late 2021.
4. Childcare has become slightly more affordable in Ireland in recent years, and the Government has made promises to reduce the cost to parents further but for many years too many people have been paying €1,000 or more each month for a place in a creche for one child, and that is if they are even able to secure a place.
The ECCE scheme has helped, although three hours a day five days a week for two years from the age of three is of limited benefit. If, as promised, the cost per child per month falls to €200, we will happily drop this off future lists, but for now it is another significant way the cost of being Irish is too high.
5. One of the infuriating things about shopping in fast-fashion chains that have a footprint in countries all over Europe is the cost. Many such shops routinely have the price of the products in Spain, the UK, Germany, Ireland and other countries. And almost invariably, Irish shoppers are expected to pay more. Such price discrepancies have been one of the bugbears of Pricewatch readers for 20 years, and we fear that it will still be a bugbear 20 years from now.
6. You can buy 500 own-brand ibuprofen tablets from a Walgreens in the US for $23 which works out at about €21 based on the exchange rates in the middle of last week. That’s about 4 cent per 200mg tablet. The cheapest 200mg Ibuprofen tablets we could find in Ireland cost €5.99 for a pack of 24. That works out at 25 cent per tablet. We are not suggesting that there should be some class of free-for-all when it comes to OTC medications and we know this is just one drug (and we completely accept that the US should never be held up as an example of affordable healthcare) but wild price differentials can be found on a range of medications between here and almost any country that you care to think of, and we have never been able to establish why that is.
7. The annual energy bills of Irish consumers are now typically more than €500 higher than much of the EU, with electricity prices in Ireland the second highest in the EU and almost 30 per cent above average, behind only Germany. When looking at the price of electricity before taxes have been included, Ireland is the most expensive in the EU.
Gas prices are the fifth-highest and more than 15 per cent above the EU average, with Irish households paying €183 a year more for gas.
[ New supports needed as energy bills set to rise further, officials warnOpens in new window ]
8. The cost of petrol and diesel on Irish forecourts is typically more expensive than most other countries in the EU. According to figures from the British-based RAC, we were second behind Denmark when it came to diesel prices and fourth-dearest for petrol. Ireland is also the second-most-expensive country in Europe to charge an electric car.
9. Eating out or even having a cup of coffee in Ireland can be a financially ruinous thing to do. While we have sympathy for those in the hospitality sector who have been struggling for years trying to keep the lights on and food on the tables in the face of spiralling overheads, it is hard not to be saddened by the prices we are too often asked to pay for food and drink that we know is not worth the price.
10. We are not unaccustomed to complaining about the weather in Ireland. Recent summers have been almost indistinguishable from recent winters, with heavy clouds and cold fronts ruining things. And here’s the thing: miserable weather costs us money. When the weather is nice, we can do more outside at no cost.
We can have cheap barbecues and almost-free days out at the beach or in our parks. And we tend to eat less – and so spend less – when the weather is hot. But because our weather is so miserable so much of the time, we end up spending more on indoor experiences such as cinemas and concerts and plays and so on. We are also less inclined to walk places when it is cold and wet, so we rely more on expensive public transport and taxis and cars.
