A funeral director based in Co Sligo, has hit out at the "excessive" €100 fee introduced for posting a death notice on RIP.ie.
This comes after RIP.ie announced plans to introduce a new fee for funeral directors to list death notices on their site from January 2025. They said that this fee has been introduced for the development and enhancement of the service that it offers.
David McGowan, the funeral director, has said that this cost will have to be passed onto the public. While he was not shocked that a fee has been introduced, he was surprised by the amount.
Predicting that a charge would be introduced, Mr McGowan said: “The funeral directors put up the notices on the platform, there are no staff members in there. Now, there are 650 deaths a week on this island that are published, and at €100 per issue, that would be somewhere around €65,000 a week".
Criticising this lengthy fee, Mr McGowan referred to similar platforms in the US and UK, who charge fees of around €25 or €30 in comparison.
Calling the €100 fee, "excessive", Mr McGowan added: "I expected a charge, but I didn’t expect it to be that high. When you put that on top of other notices like regional radios and things like that, it now brings the obituary notice up to three or four hundred quid".
The Sligo-based funeral director also stated that instead of directors posting on the site, he expects many will focus on promoting their own individual websites instead.
When asked if this fee will be passed onto the bereaved families, he added: "it will have to be".
"We cannot absorb that into our costs, not that high of a figure. Now, if it was in around €25 like the rest of Europe you possibly could, but when it goes up above €50 it’s different".
McGowan is one of several funeral directors who have criticised the introduction of this fee.
In a statement, the Irish Association of Funeral Directors asked the Irish Times Group for clarity on this.
“When suppliers set prices beyond the control of the IAFD, which could affect our members and their clients, the Association strives to voice any concerns on their behalf, as we aim to promote best practice and deliver value to to both our members and their clients", they said.
Elsewhere, Galway funeral director Joe Grogan also called the fee "excessive", adding that the "hit was too big".
