Declan Lynch: The victims of Rip-Off Ireland had for once caught perpetrators in the act | Irish Independent
Flor Lynch
Declan Lynch: The victims of Rip-Off Ireland had for once caught perpetrators in the act
Radio reviews
Donald Trump has seen Epstein story go away. Photo: AP
People are paying more for heating. Stock image
Donald Trump has seen Epstein story go away. Photo: AP
People are paying more for heating. Stock image
My own favourite encounter with Rip-Off Ireland was the Final Demand for payment of an electricity bill that I received – before the actual bill had been issued in the first place. Unpleasant though it was at first, there is something strangely satisfying about such insights into how the sausage is made, as it were.
In this case you suspected the system was so focussed on frightening the life out of its customers, they were churning out Final Demands for fun. The bill itself, of course, was a rip-off.
Amid the righteous anger, there was that strange sense of satisfaction in the voices of Liveline (RTÉ1, weekdays, 1.45pm) callers who had uncovered the Great Home Heating Oil Scandal.
Their stories followed a similar pattern. Fired up by news reports about the Middle East, they had checked out the prices of heating oil over the weekend, in order to make a pre-emptive strike of their own on Monday. To their dismay, by Monday prices had shot up in some cases by 20pc.
Typically, an order of 500 litres which had been roughly €500, was now roughly €600 and rising. That’s an oil crisis right there, for a lot of people. One caller told Kieran Cuddihy she’d “rather sit in the cold than pay that”.
The key to this outpouring of rage was the suspicion not just that a major rip-off was in progress, but that the victims for once had caught the perpetrators in the act. One caller accidentally hit the wrong button and found that oil costing €320 had gone up to €350 in a few minutes.
Everybody felt that regardless of what is happening in the Middle East, the oil couldn’t have been drilled out of the ground in Iran and ended up in Ireland that evening at the new price. Indeed, Professor Lisa Ryan of UCD had been on Morning Ireland explaining oil prices would rise, but it wouldn’t be that quick.
Cuddihy mentioned the concept of Asymmetric Price Transmission: the process whereby prices go up very quickly, but come down very slowly – a bit like going up in the lift and coming down the stairs.
He also mentioned Liveline had been talking to people in the oil business who claimed there was some reasonable explanation for these apparent outrages, but during two days of intense hostilities, they couldn’t find it within themselves to divulge this explanation on the air.
The people are becoming sceptical, anyway, of the reassuring corporate voice. In Rip-Off Ireland, while the victims are trying to figure out what’s been done to them, usually they are fed such a farrago of gobbledegook they just concede the game.
Rarely do they get this feeling that all of Liveline is with them – even if they still have to concede the game in another way, like the caller who declined to pay silly money for heating oil, opting instead to buy three long-sleeved thermal T-shirts in Dunnes. Small victories indeed.
Donald Trump has seen Epstein story go away. Photo: AP
If we’re talking about a farrago of gobbledygook, we have heard the finest minds analysing the motivations of Donald Trump in this crisis, “sane-washing” it all day long. Yet one of the first contributions on RTÉ radio will probably prove to be the soundest.
Brendan O’Connor started his Sunday newspaper review (RTÉ1, 11am) by noting a connection between the Epstein horrors getting closer and closer to Trump, and the attack on Iran.
A “conspiracy theory”, he acknowledged, or, if you like, a theory that is roughly 100pc compatible with everything else we have ever known about Trump.
It was all downhill for the rest of the week with the most brilliant analysts in the geopolitical game tormenting themselves – and ourselves – with every other possible spin of the Trumpian “strategy”. As if it was beneath them to mention the bleeding obvious “conspiracy theory”.
And nothing approached the serene wisdom of philosopher Vlad Vexler: “Global events right now are a product of things that happen in Trump’s head. And nobody controls what happens in Trump’s head, including Trump.”
Then again, reality ain’t what it used to be. During a break from Operation Epstein Files, RTÉ1’s Today with David McCullagh had a piece about a market for vintage hurling helmets, some of which are going for over €1,000.
Which seems like a lot, until some fellow tells you there’s a war on, and they’re now €1,500. Plus Vat.