Dublin Airport Car Hire|Low cost car hire in Dublin

There was sad news this month with one of Ireland oldest car hire companies going out of business.  Pembroke Services which are part of the Irish Murray Group were forced into closure with debts of around one point three million pounds. The news means the loss of nineteen jobs.

According to the liquidator there was around four hundred thousand pounds of assets which of only around a quarter were available. A father and son team runs the Murray Group out of Dublin. The firm was dealt what was to be a fatal blow this year with the breakdown of a franchise agreement with Europcar.

Employees were left disgruntled over a lack of redundancy or holiday pay. With the firm still operating in the South it was felt by many staff that they could easily be paid. It’s been a tough year for the travel industry in Ireland with tourism numbers well down on previous years.

The Electric Picnic Festival takes place in Stradbally C.O Laois this weekend. Acts include the legendary Brian Wilson as well as the Flaming Lips, Madness, Bell X1 and hundreds more acts.

There are rumours that this may be the last year of Ireland’s favourite boutique festival. The event caters for thirty two and a half thousand fans with tickets believed to be getting close to sold out. It is a three day event with music beginning Friday evening and ending Sunday night.

Camping facilities are available as well as a small number of campervans. If you are arriving into Dublin Airport then it should take about an hour and a half to reach the concert by road. You may wish to consider a Dublin Airport car hire for the weekend with prices beginning at a measly £40.06. Buses are available at twenty eight euro per person so as you can see hiring a car actually works out to be really good value.

Hopefully the weather won’t be too bad but this is Ireland so prepare well and pack the wellies and raincoats.

Regular readers of Dublin Airport car hire will be aware that we are all about offering excellent value deals for our customers. The aim of our service is to compare prices from several firms in order to find the best deal.

This is obviously something that the former Irish Minister John O’Donoghue failed to do during trips to Britain in 2006 and 2007. According to a recent report the minister’s bill for car hire came to a truly staggering €21,289.57

There were four visits in total of which three involved visits to the Cheltenham and Ascot race festivals. There was also a visit to London for some television commitments. The largest bill came in 2006 during St Patrick’s week when over seven and a half thousand euro was spent on car hire pickups.

The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism has defended the costs saying these trips were necessary in order to promote Irish tourism while every effort was made to find cheap rates.

Leading car hire experts again sent out a message to their customers this week – Book your car hire early!

There is expected to be a shortage of rental cars in busy holiday areas this summer. Prices in some locations in Spain and the US have gone up recently due to a lack of available cars.

Peter Smith from price comparison website Travelsupermarket put it down to “supply and demand”. In the past car hire firms sold old cars and brought in new ones to keep their fleet in top running order. Unfortunately tough economic times has meant that this has not been possible for many firms this year.

This has meant that many fleets have had few additions and companies have focused on keeping what they have. Easter saw a car hire shortage in certain popular destinations and it is expected that the same could happen this summer. Destinations such as Alicante and Malaga where demand is particularly high are considered most at risk.

Preferred cars such as people carriers and automatic cars should certainly be booked as early as possible if you wish to secure this type of car. There will be less of these cars in the average fleet so it can be difficult to secure one at late notice.

Remember here at Dublin Airport car hire we source cars from large and small firms. This means if major car hire firms are sold out there is still a good chance of getting a car from one of the smaller firms.

Ever thought about hiring an electric car? While it’s not something we can currently offer here at Dublin Airport car hire, it is being offered in London by a company called Streetcar,

The first scheme of it kind in the United Kingdom was launched by Boris Johnson on Monday June 15th.  Customers can now hire a modified Toyota Prius with prices starting from less than six pounds an hour.

The car is being offered on a trial basis at present with the hope of encouraging people to use transport which is friendlier to the environment.  The car cost thirty six thousand pounds to make and is also referred to as an Amberjac. 

There are currently fifty eight thousand members signed up to Streetcar. One of the founders of Streetcar Brett Akker expects membership to rise to half a million by the year 2012.

Let us know what you think? Would you hire an electric car at Dublin Airport if available? or will you be sticking with the traditional models?