Prince Charles visit cost taxpayer over €1m
SECURITY costs for the latest visit to Ireland by Prince Charles and his wife Camilla totalled more than €1million, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal €1,193,828 was spent by gardaí on the royal couple’s trip in June, and this figure could rise in the next round of overtime submitted.
The British heir to the throne held private, separate meetings with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald during his trip and expressed a desire to attend a hurling match during a future visit.
Charles and Camilla also travelled to Co. Cork for a round of engagements, including a visit to the city’s English Market, following in the footsteps of Charles’s mother Queen Elizabeth.
It followed a two-day visit to Omagh, Co. Tyrone, where they paid their respects at the scene of the atrocity which claimed 29 lives and those of unborn twins 20 years ago.
‘The visit of HRH the Prince of Wales and HRH the Duchess of Cornwall required security arrangements to be put in place by An Garda
Figure could rise with overtime payments
Síochána to ensure the safety of the visitors and the maintenance of public safety,’ said a Garda spokesperson.
‘The total expenditure by An Garda Síochána from 1 January 2018 to 9 August 2018 in respect of the official visit was €1,193,828.
‘This expenditure relates to salaries, wages, allowances, travel, subsistence, incidental expenses, communications and other equipment.’
Gardaí told the Irish Daily Mail that outstanding financial claims have yet to be processed.
More than €2million was previously spent by the Garda when Prince Charles and Camilla visited last year and the security bill totalled €2,119,742 when they were here in May 2017.
On that occasion, they visited Dublin, Kildare and Kilkenny, their second visit to the Republic in the past three years.
In May 2015 the couple travelled to Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, where the prince’s great-uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and three others were killed in an IRA bombing in 1979.
A Dublin man arrested on explosives charges in the run-up to the visit was jailed last year for five years and six months. Donal O’Coisdealbha, 25, of Abbeyfield, Killester, pleaded guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation.