Someone somewhere is having a laugh at our expense.

In last week’s column I highlighted the greed of the big oil companies after they posted record profits, and questioned the Government’s record haul of tax funds in the first six months of the year.

Yet despite these figures, there seems to be no reduction at the pumps.

To make matters worse, there is a huge difference in fuel costs from one end of the country to the next.

Now I am no petrol station operator, and I don’t fully know everything it takes to run a profitable business in this sector.

However, I do know that wholesale fuel comes from the one source before being sold to the various petrol companies in Ireland and then sold again to the station operators, let they be big chains or independent traders.

So, I find it very hard to comprehend that there is a vast difference in the cost of fuel from one end of the country to the next.

On Thursday afternoon, watchdog website pumps.ie tells us that the cheapest fuel in the country is available at the Emo Station in Rathcormac, County Cork.

Petrol there costs 175.9 cents per litre. The cheapest, according to the website, in the Killarney area, is 195.9 cents per litre of petrol. That is a vast difference between two petrol stations that are little over 100 kilometres apart.

Pumps.ie rely on members of the public to update prices but both examples cited were last updated on Wednesday last - meaning they are as up-to-date as possible.

Regardless, this is a huge difference so questions need to be asked.

You really don’t want to know the most expensive petrol station in the locality – the best advice is shop around as it seems the greed I wrote about last week is not just an international issue.