We've Got Mail: A "Celtic Tiger who occasionally gets very cheesed off with the amount of daylight robbery in this country" has been in touch about the valet parking in a top Dublin hotel. He says he is a regular customer of the Four Seasons hotel in Ballsbridge but was still surprised at the cost of parking his car there.
"My wife and I were attending a black-tie function in the hotel," he writes. "The high heels plus the inclement weather resulted in us using the hotel's valet parking service. I asked how much it was and I was told €14. It was daylight robbery at that cost, but it saved the heels and the hair."
Having had one glass of wine over the limit our reader did the right thing and left his car in the hotel when the do ended and got a taxi home. When he returned to collect it the following day at about 12.30pm he could see the car no more than 50 metres from where he stood at the hotel's front entrance.
The car was brought to him and he hopped in only to be told that "since it was now after noon I owed another €14, on top of the €14 I had paid the previous night. I explained that I had been told the cost was €14 with no mention of any deadline, but he just asked again for the additional €14." The reader paid very reluctantly and left and contacted us in the hope that other readers "may benefit from the lesson I had learned".
We called the Four Seasons and a spokeswoman said the cost of valet parking was indeed €14 and covers a 24-hour period from midday. As part of its normal operating procedure the hotel staff inform people using the facility about the high noon deadline, after which a further €14 will be incurred. The apologetic spokeswoman said that "for some reason there appears to have been a miscommunication in this case and the charges obviously were not made clear which is something the hotel very much regrets".
Coincidentally, another reader contacted us with a complaint about overnight parking in another Dublin hotel. Recently, while attending a meeting at the Conrad hotel but staying elsewhere, a Tullamore reader found that had he left his car overnight at the hotel it would have cost him €3 an hour all night.
"Nearby on St Stephen's Green, parking is free from 7pm till 7am," he writes and "across the green there are car parks with €5 per night parking. How the exorbitant charge can be justified is beyond me. Many people must be taken in, inadvertently assuming that parking charges are of the same order as nearby parks." A spokeswoman for the Conrad said that as the number of parking spaces at the hotel was limited, priority had to be given to hotel guests who were charged a nightly rate of €7.50 to use the car park, rather than €3 an hour for non-residents.
People such as our reader who were attending functions in the hotel are allowed their first hour of parking free, while people having lunch or dinner in the hotel also get free parking.
€2.18 in Spain or €42.14 here
Once more the high price of prescription drugs in Ireland has angered one PriceWatch reader, who has been in touch about the cost of a product called Losec which is used to combat oesophageal reflux. "The generic name for this medicine is omeprazole and it is widely prescribed in Ireland and elsewhere," he writes. "A month's supply of 28 10mg tablets cost me €42.14 the last time I bought it in Ireland in January."
He has subsequently discovered that he could buy the generic equivalent in any pharmacy in Barcelona without a prescription for €2.18 for the exact same amount. "This is not a typo! I checked with my GP and he advised me to buy it as it is the exact same active ingredient. Since January I have saved over €350, which is more than enough for a little holiday in Barcelona to restock."
There might be good news for Irish consumers weary of paying over the odds for generic medications after a deal was finally reached between the Health Service Executive (HSE) and pharmaceutical manufacturers on lower prices. The agreement announced last month between the HSE and the Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of Ireland should see prices fall by 35 per cent over the next four years.
The price of generic drugs in the Republic will be linked to those in a "basket" of other European countries and, crucially, Spain, Austria and Belgium, where prices for such products have consistently been among the lowest in Europe, will now be included when the average is being assessed.
