A SURVEY CARRIED out in more than 100 pubs in Dublin found that customers were bring charged more per litre to buy bottled water and soft drinks than beer and stout, according to a Dublin Senator.

Fine Gael Dublin South East Senator, Catherine Noone, expressed her surprise and disappointment after discovering how much pub customers in the capital were being charged for non-alcoholic drinks, following a survey by her office.

“The average price of mineral water per litre was €9.44, compared with €7.92 for stout,” she said. “And the difference is even starker if we take a look at other non-alcoholic drinks: brand-name beer costs €8.71 for an average litre, while brand-name cola costs a whopping €13.45 – the most expensive product per litre in the survey”.

Noone said that  price was acting as a disincentive to choose non-alcoholic drinks “at a time when we are supposed to be discouraging excessive alcohol consumption”.

“This survey shows that it’s actually more expensive to spend your night sipping on water or soft drinks, instead of beer or stout. Surely we should be using a price incentive as the most obvious way of encouraging people to drink less alcohol,” Noone said.

She added that, apart from the issue of sensible drinking, she believed that consumers were “clearly being ripped off” by some establishments.