Ticket prices Mallow-Cork
 

It's €8.20 single and €15 return. By way of comparison, Skerries-Dublin, which is a similar distance, is €3.70/€6.90. Cobh-Cork is around a third of the price, but two-thirds of the distance.

Are these prices actually supposed to encourage commuting on the line or are customers just an inconvenience when running a railway?

Intercity
 

Well, prices are controlled by the government, and there's a price cap on travel in the short hop zone (the area bounded by Balbriggan, Kilcoole, Hazelhatch and Celbridge, and Maynooth). So a single ticket from Kilcoole to Balbriggan, at an extreme, is €3.80.

Same situation applies in Cork/Cobh line.

Cork/Mallow, however, is an Intercity double-track journey, which is the most expensive fare category.

I still think Cork/Cobh line passengers get shafted relative to their Dublin counterparts:

(posted a year ago on this thread -- some other people had some interesting comments too)

Yes, true. The Cork/Cobh line uses the same fare points as Dublin suburban (e.g. Cork/Little Island is €1.40 single, €2.50 return same as class B fare here) but is more expensive over all.