99c Petrol Promotion Brings City To A Standstill

Petrol selling for 99 cent brought Dublin city centre to a stand still yesterday afternoon.

The Top Oil station on Usher’s Quay, Dublin, which was fined €14,000 last year for “under-measuring” the amount of petrol and diesel sold to customers, reopened yesterday by selling unleaded petrol for 99 cent a litre.

The promotion ran for almost two hours until gardai asked the owners to stop as tail backs along the city’s south quays brought the traffic around the city to a stop.

A Garda spokesman said it had been given no advance notice of the promotion, but that the owners complied when asked to restore “normal” prices.

A spokesman for Top said the station was reopening after undergoing an extensive 10-week refurbishment and was now fitted with new fuel dispensing technology and “the best equipment available”.

The station trading as One Oil last year pleaded guilty to 12 offences connected to the use of an unverified instrument and short measure on sale of motor fuel under the Metrology Act 1996.

The prosecution followed an action taken by the National Standards Authority of Ireland’s legal metrology service after it received complaints from consumers. It was the first time a service station had been convicted of such an offence.

The reopened station is still owned by Hugh Farrington.