So much has been written lately about how much Dublin has changed. If you left the capital to live in another country 10 years ago, you probably wouldn’t recognize much of the city today.

You might say to yourself if you bothered to come home, what’s with all these new buildings, shopping centres and apartments? Who are all these new people on the streets? What ever happened to ‘please’ and ‘thank you’? And how much in the name of God has the price of a cup of coffee gone up?

Noble truths one and all, but if you really want to wreck the head of a recently-returned Dub, tell him or her to turn on their radio and listen out for the advertisements for the Licensed Vintners Association.

In what has become an ongoing series, comedian Dara O’Brien, tries to entice us into Dublin pubs by means of his verbose comic patter. Witty and well-written though the ads are, the concept behind them is incredible!

Can it be true that publicans in Dublin are taking out advertisements to tell us to drink in public houses! Forget about building booms and foreign faces, this is the most amazing transformation you are ever likely to witness in Dublin.

Have we really changed that much as a society that we have to be told repeatedly over the national airwaves to do something that used to come as naturally to us as brushing our teeth or even breathing? What’s going on, people? Drinking in pubs is part of our DNA. It’s our national pastime. These ads are akin to the Catholic Church in the 50s taking out advertisements in the Sunday newspapers reminding us to go to mass.

We are proud holders of the title ‘biggest spenders on alcohol’ in the EU– currently shelling out an average of €1,675 per year on booze– three times more than any other citizens in the European Union.

We don’t need to be told to go to the pub, do we? Surely we can’t all have deserted our favourite boozers to spend our money drinking at home or supping in the nearest field?

So here we are in 2006 and publicans are giving us the poor mouth. Dublin pubs are ‘the best in the world’ they cry. Please come back to us, they wail. Well, maybe they are the best and maybe we will return.

Maybe too all this is karma. After all, haven’t we put up with continuous price rises over the years and bouncers on the door of pubs telling us we are ‘not regulars’ and ‘far too casually dressed to get in’ and sundry other spurious excuses to keep good folk from taking their rightful place at the bar.

So publicans, I think this is what you might call payback time. Suddenly we are in charge now and we are going to be fussy about where we spend our money in future. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the off-licence.