Rip-off Ireland laid bare by Garth Brooks fiasco

Not since JR Ewing was shot in 1980 has a man in a Stetson hat proved such a talking point in this country.

But despite global coverage of the Garth Brooks Croker fiasco, I expect the international media have already moved on from a story that has dominated the headlines here for the past number of weeks (seems longer somehow, doesn't it?).

•Garth Brooks pictured in Croke Park earlier this year at the announcement of his planned concerts

In true Irish style, no party to this sorry mess comes out in a particularly good light in the aftermath of the cancellations. As the blame game continues, we have politicians, the GAA, Dublin City Council, the promoter, local residents and, darn it, even the great country crooner himself, taking their share of the flak.

Notwithstanding the High Court injunction threat, which has since been withdrawn, three sold-out gigs could have gone ahead had Brooks not thrown a strop and taken his ball back. Frankly, his "five or none at all" ultimatum was a crass display of brinkmanship that won him little sympathy. Similarly, comparing which concerts to play as being like having to choose between children was mawkish sentimentality at its worst. It's hardly 'Sophie's Choice', Garth.

So should we be collectively embarrassed as a nation, as has been widely suggested? Well, yes and no.

In my view Dublin City Council management are to be applauded for not bowing to the considerable pressure from political and commercial interests to reverse its decision to only allow three concerts. A number of politicians did themselves a disservice by issuing populist statements to the media calling for a solution to the standoff, while naturally being cognisant of the local residents' grievances. Er, isn't that what Dublin City Council's decision sought to achieve in the first place?

We should rightly be embarrassed by a system that allows 400,000 tickets to go on sale for concerts that have yet to receive a licence. This is a particularly Irish way of doing business and will no doubt force a belated review of our licensing laws. The army of loyal Garth Brooks fans who bought tickets were caught in the crossfire and it's hard not to feel sorry for them.

Much has been made of the reputational damage caused to Ireland by the controversy. Residents were urged to support the five concerts in the national interest, with dire warnings that €50m would be lost to the local economy if they didn't go ahead.

I certainly have a degree of sympathy for genuinely struggling hotel and pub businesses affected by the cancellation of the concerts. I have also been impressed at how some hotels have been facilitating full refunds to their customers owing to the exceptional circumstances involved.

But let's cast our minds back to January when the tickets first went on sale and a number of Dublin hotels immediately hiked up their rates to cash in on the Garth Brooks bonanza. This type of behaviour smacks of greedy opportunism and lays bare the rip-off culture alive and well in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.

And for that, we should be genuinely embarrassed.