Published: Thursday, 22nd January, 2009 11:43am

Petrol station charges 71c a litre

It may be a long way to Tipperary, or even Moneygall on the Offaly/Tipperary border, but even Athlonians were getting behind new US President Barack Obama, whose ancestors hail from the small village, when garage owners Greg and John Kennedy decided to lower petrol and diesel prices to 71c to mark Obama"s inauguration.

Proprietors of Monksland Service Station, John and Greg were approached by i105-107fm and agreed to lower fuel prices to the price of gas in the States on the day President Obama was elected.

Greg Kennedy explained this week that gas prices on the day Obama was elected varied from 65c to 75c in the States and so for one hour on Monday, from 2.30pm to 3.30pm, they decided to charge 71c a litre for both petrol and diesel.

While the initiative meant they were selling fuel at a loss for that hour, Greg said it was a success in that it brought in a huge amount of customers to the garage, with one man driving from Galway to avail of the cheap fuel prices. He added that it was something they would consider doing again, although they couldn"t drop the prices to 70c again, but they would consider dropping prices by 10c a litre for an hour.

Greg said there was a queue a mile long down the road as motorists attempted to avail of the cheap fuel prices, but those who didn"t quite make it to the garage in the hour didn"t go away empty handed as the garage staff handed out vouchers so that they could come back later in the day and avail of the promotional price.

He added that it was nice to give something back to the community after the Christmas and they thought this was a novel idea. Greg said the garage always prices its fuel competitively and is one of the cheapest in town.

'If we"re not the cheapest, we always match the cheapest,' he said, adding that they don"t make a huge profit on fuel.