How much extra will you end up paying in 2015 for stuff that you would have got free little more than 15 years ago? Over the past 10 years or so, private enterprises and government bodies have quietly been rolling out charges – 22 cent here, €260 there – and the big loser, as ever, has been the consumer. All told, we are worse off by around two grand a year.
Washing: Water charges are the new boy on the block when it comes to the End of Free. Over the past 10 weeks or so, bills from Irish Water have been pushed through the letterboxes of more than 1.7 million homes. How much does our water now cost? Officially, the cost of water per 1,000 litres will be €3.70. But when allowances – notably the 21,000-litre allowance for each child living in the home – and the caps are included, for a family of four using an average supply of water, it costs €0.89 for every 1,000 litres. A single-occupant household will pay a maximum of €40 each quarter, while a household made up of two or more adults will have to pay no more than €65. For now. If a household uses less than the "free" allocation, it might have to pay less.
Parking: Clamping was introduced in Dublin on August 10th, 1998, and, like a nasty virus, it quickly spread to other urban centres. Back then any motorist who wanted to be freed from the yellow menace had to fork out €65 – today it costs €80, but the fees associated with clamping are not where the real money tree is buried. More than 56,000 vehicles were clamped in Dublin alone last year, resulting in more than €.2 million in fees to Dublin City Council. But when it comes to revenue generation, the fines pale in comparison to parking charges: Dublin City Council has raised an average of €24.2 million from paid on-street parking each year for the past four years. If you spend just two hours parked in the city centre each week, it will cost you at least €200 a year.
Travelling: It is hard to remember it now, but there was a time when we could arrive in airports with massive suitcases safe in the knowledge that no matter how much our baggage weighed, the airlines taking us off this island for our two-week break would stow them away for nothing. Today if you want to check in a modest-sized bag when flying with most airlines it will set you back anywhere between €15 and €25, depending on the airline and the time of year. Two return flights with checked-in luggage will set you back €60.
Banking: This used to cost us money. Then it was free. And now it costs us money again. During the boom years, as banks fought hard for customers, they started offering us all manner of free things, but that all ended with the crash. Now few people will pay less than €80 a year for the privilege of having a current account.
Watching: Television has always cost money, but today the act of watching it costs a whole lot more than it once did. It used to be the case that you bought – or sometimes rented – a telly and paid your TV licence (obviously) and that was that – you just plugged in the box, adjusted the rabbit ears and away you went. Now more than two million Irish homes shell out over €500 a year to one of the two big service providers, which offer hundreds of channels that never get watched. Then there is the Netflix subscription and the broadband charges needed to watch it, which take the annual cost of television to at least €1,000 every year. It has to be said that the choices are much better, however.
Discarding: In the 1990s Irish households could throw away pretty much whatever they wanted without it hitting them in the wallet (the impact our wastefulness was having on the environment was a whole different matter). Then in 2003 bin charges were introduced. And they have crept up ever since. While most people have become much better at recycling, there are few households that will have any change out of €150 this year.
Bagging: While Irish people protested about the introduction of bin charges – and more recently, water charges – the introduction of the plastic bag charge was almost uniformly popular, removing as it did the blight of the fluttering plastic bag almost entirely from our landscape. Today plastic bags make up less than half of 1 per cent of Irish litter, compared with a quite ridiculous 5 per cent at the start of the 2000s. While the levy is, technically, not supposed to generate revenue, it has still managed to raise more than €200 million over the past 14 years. Using two plastic bags a week comes at a cost of €23 a year.
Blowing: Charging for water is one thing; charging for air is a whole different story. Yet it happens. The number of petrol stations that have started charging people to blow up their tyres is growing. There are garages that charge as much as €1 for a five-minute go on the pump.
In-air eating: Remember when flight attendants used to give passengers stuff for free to distract us from the fact that we were travelling eight miles high in a large metal tube full of highly flammable fuel? Good times. Those days are gone now on all but a handful of carriers, and a miserable sandwich on an airline will cost at least a fiver and a bottle of water will set you back another €2.
Driving: Before the EU started helping us to build all our shiny motorways, driving in Ireland was free – if not particularly easy. Today more than 10 of the major routes around the country, and the Dublin Port Tunnel, cost us money each time we use them. The average toll is €1.80, so if you use one of the swanky roads just once a week, it will end up costing you €93 a year.
Paying: Many companies now think it is perfectly okay to charge us to pay our bills. Someone who won't or can't sign up for direct debits, ebilling and all the other electronic efficiencies for their utilities can expect to pay about €100 more a year than someone who does.
ON MONDAY, JUNE 15th: The things we used to pay for that are now free
