This Friday July 1, VAT is set to fall on a range of goods and services, including food in restaurants, cafes, takeaways, and hotels.
Will the reduction – from 13.5 to 9 per cent – make a real difference? It will if Joe Duffy has his wicked way. Liveline’s Fiver Friday campaign is encouraging customers to spend an extra €5 in a local business, and there’s no shortage of food and non-food €5 offers for July 1. So far, the list includes:
- €5 off the total bill for all customers in Naas Town Hall Country Market (Kildare)
- A selection of €5 offers from Londis stores nationwide
- €5 fish and chips at Fusco’s on Cork Street, Dublin
- The Goat Grill in Goatstown, the Dropping Well in Milltown and The Old Orchard in Rathfarnham – meal deals for €5
This campaign follows hot on the heels of Minister for Finance Michael Noonan’s advice that we should spend, spend, spend our way out of the recession. He got a lot of flak for this. But while a lot of people are suffering badly, there’s also no doubt that there’s still a lot of wealth and money in Ireland.
What do you think of Noonan’s announcement? And will you be spending an extra €5 this Friday?
Tuesday 28 June, 2011 at 11:08 am
I think it was this spend, spend, spend frame of mind that got people into trouble in the first place…
If I have to buy something, I try to buy Irish, but I will not spend a cent more than what I need in this current environment. As we have seen recently, ordinary people won’t have a cushion of bailouts to fall back on…
Tuesday 28 June, 2011 at 12:07 pm
I am not spending just for the sake of it. And I am not spending money I don’t have, which is the reason why people are so much in debts now – banks allowed them to spend far more than what they could ever repay, how did they expect to recover the money? I’ll put that extra fiver into my piggy bank and save it for a rainy day, sorry if I am not doing my bit for the economy, but surely no one will bail me out of my negative equity house?