The surging cost of car hire in Ireland is once again making headlines – after a tourist was quoted a staggering €51,350 to rent a car for nine days.
Speaking to The Irish Mirror, a former Leitrim councillor said his brother-in-law was quoted more than €51,000 for a nine-day car rental for a family holiday to Ireland this summer.
Brother-in-law quoted over €51,000 for 9 days car rental for his family holiday to Ireland this summer. Presuming he’ll do €150km per day, a helicopter would be a lot cheaper. #RipOffIreland #PriceGouging pic.twitter.com/bzx26M9R4n
— John McCartin (@mccartinjohn) June 15, 2022
Former Fine Gael councillor John McCartin hit out at the quote as an “embarrassment” to the country, as he blasted “price gouging”.
Speaking to Ocean FM, McCartin pointed to the absurdity of the price, saying that the same car could be bought for roughly €45,000 – and pointed out that hiring out a helicopter would have cost less.
“He’s coming to Ireland and decided that he would book a car to bring him and his family around the countryside and he was charged something like €51,350 for a car – the use of which he’ll only have for nine days,” McCartin said.
“You could buy the same car for around €45,000, so clearly, we acknowledge that there are supply chain issues and there’s a scarcity of cars at the moment, but clearly these companies have the policy that they are going to charge the maximum they can get from anybody who is desperate for the use of a vehicle”.
The former politician explained he had researched the quote, which he described as “extortionate”, and found that his brother-in-law could have rented out a helicopter for less.
“I googled to see if you could charter a helicopter and discovered that for around 200km a day it would be in the region of €3,500, which is a far cry over nine days from €51,000 my brother was quoted for the use of a nine-seater car”.
McCartin did not disclose the name or location of the rental company which was used by his relative.
Car rental rates in Ireland have been the subject of recent controversy after droves of people shared their disillusionment with the cost of renting a car from Dublin Airport. A price comparison by Gript earlier this month found that the cost of hiring out a car in Dublin far exceeded the cost of doing so in Belfast – while rates were also significantly cheaper in Heathrow, Berlin, and Copenhagen.
Renting a five-seater Ford Focus from Saturday 9th July – Saturday 16th July from Belfast International Airport will cost €106.27 a day, or €743.92 a week for car hire.
If the car is rented from Dublin Airport, however, the cost is significantly higher. In fact, it soars to twice that price – to rent the same car model, for the same dates, and for the same length of time.
Renting a Ford Focus from Dublin Airport with the same car hire company, eurocar.com, will cost you €207.29 a day, or €1,451 for the week of the 9th-16th July. The cost from Heathrow comes in at half the price of renting a car from Dublin, with much lower costs quoted across other European Airports – from Spain to Germany.
Car rental prices in Ireland have shot up sharply from pre-pandemic levels, which, coupled with a rise in fuel costs, is forcing tourists to reconsider whether they can afford to visit the country at all – with rates in other European nations significantly more affordable. Ireland’s sky-high cost of car hire poses a serious risk to tourism, various organisations, tourists and locals have warned.
The cost increase has been attributed to supply issues, after many firms reduced their fleets and sold off cars during Covid-19 lockdowns. With demand surging as people start to book holidays once again, fewer older cars are available and new cars cannot be delivered owing to ongoing restrictions.
However, speaking to NewsTalk recently, Shane O’Donoghue, editor of Completecar.ie said that even taking the above into account, current prices remain excessive.
“I still don’t really understand how that leads to such a dramatic increase in the cost of car hire,” he ventured.
“If they don’t have enough cars, fine, they can’t supply enough cars but what seems to be happening is they’re just putting the prices up.”