Sir, – On the December 10th last we purchased home heating oil and paid 85.48 cent per litre. Today (March 4th), we purchased some and paid 110.15 cent per litre.
That price change is a 29 per cent increase for fuel that does not, according to the Taoiseach, originate in the Gulf states. Can any person explain to us the morality of that punitive increase?
Does anybody care that some people will not be able to afford this very necessary source of home heating?
Or probably more pertinently: is there any morality involved? – Yours, etc,
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Michael and Kathleen Gleeson,
Clasheen,
Killarney,
Co Kerry.
Sir, – If I buy 100 shovels a month wholesale at €90 each and sell them for €100, I make €10 per shovel and can afford to restock next month.
But suppose the wholesale price rises to €110. What should I do? The obvious answer is to raise my retail price immediately – say to €120 – so that I can continue to buy shovels next month.
If I stubbornly keep selling at €100, I may appear generous for a short time, but I will soon run out of money and will not be able to buy any more shovels at all.
This simple arithmetic explains why fuel prices at the pump rise quickly when wholesale prices rise. Retailers must price fuel based on what it will cost to replace their stock, not on what they paid for the last delivery.
Otherwise my shop, or petrol station, closes. – Yours, etc,
John Suttle,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.
