It's not all smooth running for Irish Rail, writes Conor Pope, and one reader may have found the world's most expensive milk

Irish Rail has got a lot of flak from readers since the start of summer. If it's not the high cost of chocolate on trains, it's problems with the online ticket-reservation system, uninterested staff or difficulties in transporting outsized items such as bicycles. Two people posted comments to the PriceWatch blog this month complaining about Irish Rail's ticket pricing. First up was Martin Finke, who lived in Ireland from 2002 to 2004. He frequently took trains between Dublin and Cork and Dublin and Galway and "every ticket price I paid was different. I gave up predicting how much money it would cost and just expected another number to fall out of the sky and onto the ticket agent's tongue."

Then there was Tony, who travelled from Portlaoise to Cork at the beginning of the month. "The Iarnród Éireann website informed me that the single fare was €25," he writes. However, the ticket office at Portlaoise station "insisted on taking €38". He says staff "scoffed" at his claim that a €25 fare was available and advertised on the website "and announced to one and all in the vicinity that he wouldn't even let me go to Dublin for €25. I re-checked the web again and with the IE travel centre in Dublin - it should be €25. Guess who's frustrated trying to get a refund?"

We contacted Irish Rail and are sorry to report that his chances of getting a refund are slim. The company's spokesman Barry Kenny pointed out that the fare our reader saw was a web-only special-offer fare and the normal price is €38. In connection with Finke•'s complaint about fluctuating fare structures, Kenny said that promotional and discount fares were available on many routes, so prices do vary - but quite often to the traveller's advantage.

Another reader travelling on the Dublin to Galway route earlier this summer booked a place in the first-class compartment. She paid an extra €11 for the privilege - an amount she considered perfectly reasonable until she arrived at her carriage to find all the seats taken. Her ticket did not have a seat number and no staff could be found, so she made her way to the cheap seats with a distinct feeling that she had completely wasted her money.

Well, not completely. Kenny says our reader is entitled to a refund as she did not get what she paid for. Irish Rail has made considerable improvements in the area of reservations and online booking over the past three years, particularly on the busy Cork-Dublin route, where people are now allocated numbered seats with their names displayed on electronic boards above each seat. Unfortunately, this facility is not available across the network.

Last week we highlighted some increasingly common add-ons to self- catering accommodation and pointed out one house in the southeast which was charging its summer tenants €84 a week for electricity. Michael O'Callaghan has outdone us with even more alarming charges associated with the short-term rental market. He says that his neighbours, who have just moved to Ireland from the UK, rented a house in Galway for six days at a cost of £1,200 (€1,770). "When they checked out, however, they were charged another £267 for one week's ESB; this is nearly €400. My ESB bill is about €100 every two months; it's a joke."

Kevin Fitzpatrick has happened across what might just be the most expensive milk in the world. "Since all liquids are confiscated at security in Dublin airport, I decided to buy a carton of milk in the duty-free shopping area," he writes. He probably wished he hadn't bothered. When he got to the till he was asked for a staggering €2.99 for his litre of low-fat milk - in "a shop; not a cafe or bar or restaurant. The same product in Tesco is 65 cent. This must be the most expensive milk in the country, if not the world," he writes.

•  See PriceWatch with Conor Pope every Monday in The Irish Times. Ripped off? Stunned by good value? E-mail; pricewatch@irish-times.ie