Surprising very few of our readers, I’m sure, is the news that Dublin is more expensive than London or Paris for a bog-standard three-course meal. In our fair city, you would pay eighty quid, whereas Paris averages at sixty for the same amount of food.

A well-timed survey by casino promoter Bonusetu ranked 20 European capitals for dining out places Dublin at number 10 overall. That said, they noted that our restaurants are among Europe’s most spenny. This comes on the heels of the recent extension of the hospitality industry’s special nine per cent VAT rate until the end of the summer.

Denmark’s capital Copenhagen is the most expensive at €107.32, followed by Monaco, which came in at an even hundy. At least we now have a list of all the cheapest cities to holiday in this summer.

Inflation and high energy bills have pushed up all the parts of running a restaurant. Restaurants Association of Ireland chief executive Adrian Cummins said, “The cost of business has increased. I don’t really need to go through them all: energy costs, rent, and rates have all gone up,” in an interview with The Irish Times.

We all know the song by now, but being fatigued with the COLC doesn’t mean it’s not true.

The energy crisis is getting most of the blame because French energy costs are between twenty cents and twenty-one cents per kilowatt hour, the unit in which it is sold. The same quantity of power costs Irish households forty-one cents.

According to The Irish Times ‘Cummins argued that there was little sign of energy suppliers passing on lower wholesale rates. “I think there’s some profiteering going on,” he added’.

Elsewhere on CHAR: How Much is Too Much For a Pint