Taxpayer billed €500,000 for embassy limos
Sarkozy's chauffeur-driven day trip cost €9,000
Sunday November 29 2009
CHAUFFEUR-driven cars and limousines hired by Irish embassies in four countries for politicians and visiting dignitaries cost the taxpayer close to €500,000 since January 2008.
The Eurosceptic Czech president Vaclav Klaus was chauffeured around Dublin at a cost of €24,000 during the controversial three-day state visit last November, in which he famously called Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin a hypocrite.
The limousine bill for the Tanzanian prime minister Mizengo Peter Pinda on an official visit in February came to €22,790, while the cost of chauffeuring the prime minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Tan Dung, in March last year cost €19,022.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy's flying state visit to Ireland in July last year lasted less than a day, but the limousine at his disposal cost the Irish taxpayer €9,142.
In total, limousines for visiting heads of state and diplomats around Ireland cost €195,000, while another €295,713 was spent chauffeuring Irish ministers and their entourages, politicians and VIPs to and from their destinations.
In total, the department spent €195,626 on limousines and car hire in Ireland, mostly for visiting dignitaries, from January 2008 to date.
The embassy in Brussels spent €133,740 on car hire for the same period; the Irish embassy in London spent €111,083; and the embassy in Paris €48,944.
The latest figures were released by the Department of Foreign Affairs this weekend in the wake of controversy over its long-standing and costly practice of hiring chauffeur-driven cars for visiting dignitaries.
The practice was highlighted in August this year when it emerged that John O'Donoghue, the former Ceann Comhairle who resigned amid controversy over his expenses, was chauffeured in January 2006 between airport terminals at Heathrow at a cost of €472.
The Government has introduced new rules obliging embassies to get ministerial approval in advance of hiring their cars or booking their hotels, after several ministers admitted that they had no idea what their chauffeur-driven cars cost the taxpayer.
Bills include a €1,589 charge for a chauffeur-driven car for Mr Martin in Brussels during the summer; a €1,155 bill for Tanaiste Mary Coughlan in March; a €2,069 bill for Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith in May; and a €1,426 bill for car hire for Health Minister Mary Harney in Brussels earlier this year.
Mr Smith ran up one of the largest car-hire bills. A car and driver for a two-day trip to Brussels last year cost €3,717, while another cost €3,211. A limousine hired for the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, cost €4,533 for just one day in London in February 2008.
The Irish embassy in Belgium, meanwhile, spent €1,946 on four car trips for Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny last year.
The bulk of it -- €1,496 -- went on a mini bus to bring Mr Kenny and his team from Ypres to Brussels and back again in December last year, two "pick-ups" at a cost of €212 and a limousine, which cost €237.
Environment Minister John Gormley availed of nine hire cars between Brussels, Paris and London from January 2008 to date at a cost of about €10,300, including a €3,580 for one trip to London on March 13 last year.
Last month, Mr Gormley blamed the embassy in London for organising a €2,200 limousine dispatched from London to collect him from a ferry in Holyhead and bring him a climate change event in Hay-on-Wye.
Mr Gormley was one of several politicians who were forced to defend their spending abroad after details of expensive car hire charged to the taxpayer emerged in recent months.
Mr Martin explained the reasons behind the high costs for limousine hire, saying that it was a long-standing practice internationally to have government ministers abroad met by cars, partly for security reasons.
- Maeve Sheehan
Sunday Independent
