Rip-Off Republic

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Overview

Rip-Off Republic was an RTÉ television show highlighting the cost of living and working in Ireland. It was presented by Eddie Hobbs and was broadcast on Mondays at 21:30 on RTÉ One during late August and early September 2005. The series was a phenomenon that attracted the largest TV audience in Ireland for a factual series - other than sports events. The carryover from Hobbs satire rocked the Fianna Fáil / PD Government at the height of the Celtic Tiger as Hobbs polemic demonstrated how development land costs had permeated through nearly every cost of living. Hobbs prophetically said that "development land is the only game in town" and that the Irish economy was "eating its young". The show was filmed in front of a live audience at The Helix in Dublin City University. It was presented in the format of a stand-up monologue by Eddie Hobbs, with occasional inserts filmed on location. According to RTÉ, the programme attracted record viewing figures, with 667,000 people watching the second programme in the series. The series peaked at just under one million viewers.