A hotel in West Cork has become the latest Irish business to be hit with an outrageous electricity bill as the cost of living continues to reach new heights.
The manager of the hotel in the south of the country has warned other businesses to brace themselves for a tough winter after they were informed of their €18,000 monthly charge.
This comes after two well-known energy providers announced increased price hikes in October, which will see even more money being forked out on electricity nationwide.
READ MORE: Small Irish coffee shop shocked as it receives €10k electricity bill - 'how can this be possible?'
The 66-room Celtic Ross Hotel is already trying to cope with skyrocketing prices and revealed their July bill came in at €18,262, Cork Beo reports.
General Manager Neil Grant made a shocking comparison to the cost just three years ago and said keeping the lights on for the same month in July 2019 was less than half the price at €7,700.
Mr. Grant is now calling for action and pointed to the other expenses facing businesses like insurance - which is now almost €5,000 per month more than in 2019 as well.
The four-star hotel in the heart of Rosscarbery had a busy summer, but like any business that operates off the beaten track things are expected to get a lot quieter over the coming months.
Speaking about their latest bills they confirmed that their quotes came from two different suppliers. They explained that because their yearly contract had finished on July 12, they decided to switch to another company who were advertising the same rates after that.
He said they opted to switch to a short-term 'fix' instead of doing another year on contract so they could keep their options open if prices jumped again.
He said: "We put the two bills together. One from the company that's just finished its contract and one from the new company which we've joined and it adds up to €18,262.
"That's 12 days with the old company and the rest is with the new one. The total is for 31 days.
"There's not much difference between their rates. We're not in a new contract that's going to bring substantially higher bills over the next few months, that's not the reality.
"August was as busy as July, we've still not seen the August bill but it's going to be around the same.
"Going through our accounts and analysing rates we were expecting around €15,000, [for July] and that was mind-boggling enough because our bill for June was about €8,900.
"So already predicting it was going to be around that, and then seeing it going as high as it did when we already thought the estimate was a bad rate was very hard to take.
"To put perspective on it, it worked out that around €10 of every room we sold went on electricity that month. We do have a restaurant and a function room, but at the same time it's hard to quantify it the right way."
This week Electric Ireland announced their charges are going up by 26.7 percent from October 1st, while Prepay Power announced something similar yesterday. Airtricity also made an announcement last Friday.
It's the third time in 12 months that each company brought their rates up - and it’s expected that others will announce big changes too.
Mr. Grant says the government steps in with measures that help alleviate rising costs before businesses are forced to close.
"This [energy] isn't the only thing businesses are dealing with, insurance now is €4,800 a month higher than the same month in 2019. We spent two years where we were either closed or operating with less footfall yet now our insurance is almost €60,000 more a year compared to pre-pandemic.
"It feels like there's only more of this coming down the line.
"Winter is on the way, and we have three or four months in a year that are loss-making in normal times. Even pre-covid you'd do quit well for six months, then very well for July and August, but you'll have three or four months that rely on a lot of things.
"We're in Rosscarbery, it hasn't got a major footfall in the sense that you'd be full every day for lunch and dinner in winter. Every year we analyse how we can make losses much smaller, and something like electricity can affect us massively.
"Then there's how this affects households too. There are lots of people who'll be reassessing whether they can go on getaways, they'll be looking at expenses on things like takeaway coffees or lunches out because they'll have to make sure they're protected.
"Businesses like cafes, restaurants, and hotels are trying to adjust to that as their own costs go up. A lot of places have put their prices up because they can't avoid doing it, but they know this has an effect on customers.
"Some places will be making decisions on trading hours, or to close for a couple of weeks during quiet times. Nobody wants to do that but it's a new reality.
"Places could be looking at trimming back their menus, or changing things that might in turn negatively impact the guest experience and it's all a knife-edge to try and juggle both for businesses and for people. Massive decisions are going to be made and some places will have to take big risks.
"This will be the toughest winter any hospitality businesses will face by far, and I think it's going to be especially tough on the smaller cafes and restaurants particularly.
"We'll see how this all plays out, but in the last week all we've seen is how electricity is going up, and another company's announced their hike followed by another. Then we read how they're making big profits. Them and insurance companies are making big gains while there are these middle entities who are feeling the full impact.
"This all makes for a pretty worrying economy for the next couple of months unless something changes."
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