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THE TWO STATE visits hosted by Ireland earlier this year cost the state almost double what had been expected, it emerged today.
Speaking in the Dáil today, Minister Alan Shatter confirmed that the visits by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and US President Barack Obama cost Ireland €36 million.
The figure had already been suggested by PJ Stone, the general secretary of the Garda Representative Association, although the government had indicated earlier that the visits had cost the state less.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny had indicated in June that the state would pay out around €20 million for the two visits, while Shatter had said in May that the Defence Forces’ bill for the events was estimated to hit €1.73 million. Shatter’s estimate did not include garda security work and overtime payments.
Today, Shatter said that the cost of the garda operations was €15 million and that “efficiencies” by the gardaí meant that this was covered by the service’s allocated supplementary expenses.
Fianna Fáil TD Dara Calleary raised concerns that some garda operations would be curtailed as part of those “efficencies” in order to cover the cost of the state visits, and questioned where the other €21 million for the state visits would come from.
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Worth every penny, great investment..
Totally agree.
@andy noted the guinness advert in your avatar. They did brilliantly out of it!
Money well spent. I worked in the tourism industry during the summer and about 60% of the people that I cam in contact with from either the States or the UK said that the visits by the respective leaders was one of the main reasons that they came to visit Ireland.
Definitely worth the money.
it was a terrific investment. We would have some from the UK who could possibly be put off coming to Ireland because of our shared past. Seeing their head of head coming probably changed their minds. Also the tourism industry can only benefit from this.
Definitely worth it. A one-off cost as well, not ongoing cost like ministerial pensions…
yes it certainly was. however..now as a result there will be NO replacement patrol cars purchased in 2012..a retrograde step with nationwide many patrol cars fast approaching(no pun.intended) the 300000 km limit at which they are grounded and removed from service…we really need to have a serious review of procurement in public service..this situation should not arise
Good spend. A recent tourism show was on rte, where people walked through Irish country side. They ended up at the rock Cashel where, during the casual conversation with the curator, the curator mentioned the Queens visit resulted in a boost in British visitors immediately after.
That’s 1 area in 1 town. It all adds up.
Hang on now till I check my payslips there to see how much tax I forked out for those visits!! It’s easy find cos its more than Im getting out of my paycheck!!
Well Elaine, there’s more than 2 million paying income tax, so at an imaginary average, you paid €18, or about 35c a week over the year.
Love to see an audit done of those costs…and who stroked who.
That is outrageous!…there is no way that kind of expenditure can be justified, especially now, when they’re about to announce one of the toughest budgets the country has ever seen.
€36 million is just a drop in the ocean.
Declan your a clown
Declan, what a stupid comment! How can you even suggest gardai fiddled the claims they made? If you want to make unsubstantiated claims like that don’t bother leaving comments in future. Firstly, it wasn’t two days of a visit like you claim, aside from the fact the queen was here longer than that herself and Obama dropped in for a day all the areas they were to visit would have and were locked down and searched in some cases a month before there arrival for fear some bigoted group or individual would try and create a security issue during the visit. As a previous post already stated, if it wasn’t for the real and credible threat that existed from a minority of bigoted idiots who dwell on the past there wouldn’t have been the need for the size of the security effort on behalf of the state. If the visit of the queen to this state went any small way to help to heal the wounds and pain shared by the people of this island during the past century you can’t put a price on that!!!!
Btw: the funding for this visit should have been separate and not effect the budget for the gardai but hey.
Is it not a fact that the Obama administration prevented Ireland from applying a haircut to Anglo bondholders and has cost this country billions of €’s , maybe I am the only one who thinks this. As a republican I have to admit that the Queen’s visit was impressive and helped relations between the two countries.
Better relations? Between who? The elite of both countries? Dublin was shut down as they put on a lavish and obscene banquet for the business and political elite to honour a sectarian, undemocratic, anti-democratic monarch who believes she has a divine right to rule what she considers her “subjects”. She arrived in Dublin on the anniversary of the worst atrocity of the northern conflict – the Dublin/Monaghan bombings which seen more than 30 civilians murdered in no warning bombs by the UVF in collusion with the British Military. Yet, no apology from Lizzy for the murderous actions of her troops of which she is Commander in Chief. More importantly no mention of any decision to have Brit government files relating to their role in the attacks handed over to the Tribunal of enquiry in this state. Amazing how easy they could find money to pay for these visits by war criminals yet cant find money to keep hospital beds open or special needs assistants in place.
She’s a head of state.She can’t apologsie.
Did we apologise for killing her cousin
And btw. Gerry is a member of Eirigi are Republican group that actually protested and was photographed with some of its members involved in the rioting. If his group hadn’t promised to cause such a mess and behaved ,The security for the Queen would have been less. Its the likes of Gerry which actually caused the Queens visit to cost more than it should have.
I’m not saying it wasn’t worth it, I’m saying that as taxpayers we should be entitled to know how the money was spent…and where…..
If there is a spare 36 million hanging around to entertain why is our health service in such a shambles
Good man Declan, said u’d get a bit of a rise on here by abusing and accusing the guards of corruption while people r having a legitimate debate. I agree with the other posters, u are a meatball!
That was a good investment for the tourism industry!!
“fiddled a few thousand here and there”…lol. Well done there. That’s a good one alright. That’s got to win an award for the dumbest post yet on the journal. Go way and get your facts straight and you won’t embarrass yourself again the next time by posting such careless tripe.
Great investment..sure they can take it back in the budget or ask the UK or USA for a Bailout..
“great investment”! My ar*e!! In the height of the greatest economic recession this country has ever seen we spend €36 million euro on two foreigners to come to our country, we have 14% of our population unemployed, education cuts, social welfare cuts, 30,000 public sector jobs about to be cuts, an incapable health system and a country on it’s knees! €36 million to show the world we can “reconcile”.. Total bullsh*t I could be here all day with reasons where that money could of went and it wouldn’t include paying for the leader of one of the richest countries in the world and a murderer into our country.
so we shouldnt invest in anything then?
Yes As I have said if you’d read the comment… Education, employment, healthcare should be at the top
Of our investment list not these two!
the money generated from “those two” can be used on education and healthcare etc
As opposed to what the 36 million spent on them?
ok i’ll make it easier for you darryl. anne has 36 apples, barry has 500. if anne gives her 36 apples to barry he’ll give her his 500!
The money should come of of the Foreign Ministry. Reduce the number of embassies as per McCarthy to pay for the visits.
Can someone tell me who calculated the 20 million initial cost, how did the quantify it and come to that figure yet some how manage to get it nearly 100% wrong!!
We all do our budgets for various jobs we do whether it be buying a car, building/buying a house etc, now has anyone here gone 90% over that budget…..
If that happened in our work place we would be out on our ass.
I wouldn’t worry about it, that Declan fella is a tremendous gobshite. I saw another stupid commit by him on the Jeremy clarkson article earlier. He’s just using the journal because it was already on the phone that he stole!
Jeez there really is some seriously uninformed people in this country how business works: basic example: invest 36 million in your product year one! Regain your investment within 6 months of launch, gain profit the next 30 years just because some bloke wants to go to Moneygall cause Obama did or go to the Market in Cork because Lizze did… And what can we do with that profit…. hmm invest in hospitals schools Garda cars…..
well said gerry,complete waste of money,considering the amount of homeless unemployed,health system in dissarray,unbelievable waste of money,the only people who have profited from the queen and obamas trip where the gardai who id imzgine made lots of claims for overtime,and fiddled a few thousand here n there,f@@@ing country and some of its citizen are the laughing stock of europe,paying all that money for two days ,when our children and there children are going to be paying off our massive debts for the next few generations.
How dare you, “the only ones to make money where the gardai” were u shipped around on buses, worked 16hour days with out breaks, and most importantly put your safety at risk for the better of this country! The whole world watched those visits and each passed with out incident bar a few Clowns just looking for trouble for no reason!!! Maybe you should do some research before you comment!!
Don’t panic everyone.. didn’t we find 1.36billion down the back of the ministerial couch ?? ;-)
Ya but they gave a load of that to the bond holders, the rest went on Christmas jumpers for Enda and Eamon and stock piling salt for the Leinster house car park, phone bill for votes on strictly come farming etc. etc.
I know the english were aware of the visit by their Queen as it was covered live in their broadcast media. However, most of my friends/relations in the states had no idea Obama was here or coming until I told them.It seemed to depend on what city/state you lived in and what local version of ABC/CNN/NBC and god forbid Fox that they have. Relations of mine in Chicago went to an Irish Pub to see Obamas speech live and that night on the main news little mention was given to his visit here.The Queens visit appeared to get way more coverage in the states than Obamas apart from New York where one of the local networks gave a fair amount of time to his visit.
I wouldn’t have thought that the impact on tourism from Obamas visit was as great as the cheaper prices of hotel rooms,at least when it comes to travelling americans. I’m sure the Queens visit had some impact as it was broadcast as a 4 day good news story and presented Ireland in a good light abroad.
€35 million would be cheap if we can get a return on our investment.We also now know that the english would have supported us burning the bondholders when we had the chance.One thing is sure,at this moment in time we can’t afford to have bad relations with our nearest neighbour and it does us no harm internationally to be seen as a welcoming country, even to those who unjustly rule over a part of our country.
At the very least the €35 million spent should get us 12 points from england in next years eurovision and the battering we will give to their football team in next years Euro12 will be easier for them to take from “friends”.
According to some protestors are the reason that the so called viists cost so much.
Is that just another way of saying that the “great unwashed” should stay quiet and accept their lot . I.E. pay the private debt of the speculators, pay the private debt of the banks , line the pockets of the capitalist elite and remain subservient.
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