Priced out of renting a car this summer? This could be the answer to your prayers

If you’d been hoping to rent a car in Ireland this summer but had been dismayed by the cost—lots of us have seen what look like pretty extortionate prices—the answer to your prayers may have arrived.

A family-run car dealership has been offering rental cars for much less than elsewhere—as little as €350 a week for one of its 200 vehicles, compared with the €1,000 that other companies are asking even for a small car such as a Ford Ka, the €1,600 they’re charging for a medium-sized vehicle such as a Volkswagen Golf, or the more than €2,500 they’d like for a people-carrier such as an Opel Zafira.

The downside for tourists arriving at Dublin Airport—or for Irish people coming home from abroad for a few weeks—is that the dealership is in Newry, just north of the Border, about 100km away. But the garage, Shelbourne Motors, will also drop the car off at Clayton’s Dublin Airport hotel, then pick it up at the end of the rental, for an extra €240 or so. That means a fortnight’s car hire from the airport could cost about €950 (plus a refundable security deposit of about €175), or less than half the minimum rates being quoted elsewhere.

Rental prices are high across Europe this year, as car-hire companies downsized during the pandemic and now seem to be operating smaller fleets at higher prices to recoup some of the money they lost after so many tourists had to cancel their overseas holidays in 2020 and 2021. But some of the asking prices have been cited as another nail in the coffin for the idea of holidaying in Ireland.

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Gavin Thompson, Shelbourne Motors’ vehicle-rental manager, says that all of its cars have already been booked for June and July and that cars for August and September are booking fast, in part because of the social-media interest after Niall Meegan, an Irishman who recently moved from Australia to Florida, recommended Shelbourne’s vehicle-rental service on a Facebook group for Irish people abroad. He wrote that he booked a new Kia Ceed for £300, or just over €350, for a week during a recent trip back to Ireland.

Meegan added that he had no affiliation with the company and was just thinking “of the many people and young families coming home from Aus only to be met with excruciating prices for car hire. Hope this saves some of you a few $$.”

And when Shelbourne Motors runs out of cars, Thompson says, it also has a fleet of 50 vans available at similar rates. That may appeal less to an average family than it would to couples who plan to camp near a beach and spend their holidays surfing—and so have boards, a tent and other equipment to transport—but at a push it might still be a way to get around Ireland.

In the meantime, the enterprising Newry dealership has at least shown that it’s possible to run a car-rental business in the summer of 2022 without charging its customers the earth.