Sales of parliamentary plonk at Leinster House raise €142k

A total of 11,811 glasses of the parliamentary plonk was also sold during the same period in the Dail bar and restaurant, bringing in a further €66,724 for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission.

Bottles of Houses of the Oireachtas label wine first hit the shelves on Kildare Street in December 2013.

Around 440 bottles were sold that month, while about 2,000 flew off the shelves the following year.

Records released under the Freedom of Information Act show that 244 bottles and 11,663 individual glasses of Oireachtas wine were consumed in the Dail bar between March 2015 and last October.

They retailed at an average of €5.67 a glass and €21.65 a bottle over the three-and-a-half-year period.

A total of 1,113 bottles of the own-brand wine were also sold in the bar for 'take-out', at an average price of €15 each.

Diners

In the restaurant, just four bottles and 148 glasses of the merlot and sauvignon blanc wine was bought by diners during the same period.

However, customers snapped up 1,336 gift bottles in presentation bags at a cost of €15 each.

Oireachtas members and visitors to Leinster House also bought 121 cases of the wine, each containing 12 bottles, for €140, while 478 'gift packs' containing three bottles were sold for €35 each.

Sales of the special-label wine totalled €142,491 over the three-and-a-half years.

Figures for the period prior to this were not available, as new till systems were installed in March 2015.

Plans for the wine had been in the making for four years before bottles finally hit the shelves in December 2013.

However, the place of alcohol in Leinster House has also been the subject of some criticism, amid claims that TDs and senators were drinking while debating important legislation.

A spokesperson for the Houses of the Oireachtas declined to comment on the figures.