If Ireland was a company, it would be in "dire need" of public relations rehabilitation after the negative publicity it received on the "Rip-off Ireland" issue, a new report claims.
On just one day last September, 61 articles in the national press referred to "Rip-off Ireland" or the "Rip-off Republic".
An analysis of coverage in the national press between January 2003 and December 2005 found that 3,694 articles made "rip-off" references. Almost half of the coverage was negative.
Articles referred to rip-offs in everything - from visits to Santa Claus, to lapdancing clubs. They found rip-offs in items as diverse as psychic readings, turkeys, burial plots and toys.
The Media Analysis Case Study of Rip-Off Ireland was carried out by the MediaMarket, a media evaluation company, for the Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII)'s annual conference to be held in Dublin tomorrow.
It found that Ireland's "brand" had been "severely damaged" by the negative reports. The Ireland brand registered "a devastating" minus 1,364 on the Corporate Reputation Indicator (CRI) used to track a company's reputation in the media. The CRI measures weight of coverage and analyses its tone.
The number of articles relating to rip-offs peaked between July and September last year. Rip-Off Republic, the RTÉ summer series presented by Eddie Hobbs was "a significant contributor to damaging Ireland Inc's reputation", the report found.
"August saw a huge surge in volume and September had more coverage than any previous quarter, let alone month." The largest volume of coverage referred to the retail sector.
The property sector was accused of ripping-off the public with management fees and estate agent charges. The articles on insurance included criticisms of motor and health insurance.
Two sectors got positive coverage when the topic of rip-offs was raised. The tourism sector generated some positive articles after Fáilte Ireland warned that the "rip-off cliche" was dangerous.
The telecommunications regulator ComReg also generated positive coverage after it targeted the extra costs charged by the mobile phone industry.
MediaMarket managing director Michael Farrelly said if Ireland was a company, he would be advising it to urgently invest in some public relations rehabilitation.
