Four-star luxury in Texas for junior minister costs taxpayer $690 per night
A GOVERNMENT minister enjoyed a four-night stay at a fourstar US hotel with the room bill coming to almost $2,600.
The room for junior trade minister Pat Breen cost $690 per night for the first three nights; the rate dropped to $519 for the final night.
Mr Breen stayed at the Westin Austin Downtown Hotel as he attended the SXSW technology conference in Texas last March.
The hotel, centrally located in Austin, has a heated rooftop pool and city skyline views.
The luxury would have been familiar to the minister: just two months earlier, he had enjoyed staying at a five-star hotel in Dubai, which also boasted rooftop pools and city skyline views.
The Clare TD was one of five guests put up in the Austin Westin by Enterprise Ireland, with skyhigh room bills incurred for each.
The accommodation bill came to $15,845 (or just over €12,700) for the minister, two Enterprise Ireland staff, and two officials from the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation.
That $15,845 covered just 24 nights worth of accommodation as well as a $123 bill from the hotel’s Stella San Jac restaurant.
Mr Breen’s transport for the trip did not come cheap, either. His return flight to Texas via New York, business class, cost €4,419, according to the records.
Flights for five officials, one in business and four in economy, cost an additional €11,742, according to the records. As part of a preliminary Freedom of Information request seeking overall costs, Enterprise Ireland had listed the cost of the hotel room for Mr Breen as €1,620.
A subsequent FoI request for the actual receipts revealed the true cost was more than €400 higher.
In a statement, Enterprise Ireland said: ‘The deposit was paid by our travel partners but hadn’t been billed to [us] at the time the [original] FoI table was produced. It is in the process of being billed to [us].
‘The cost of accommodation for Minister Breen to attend SXSW was influenced by the strong demand for accommodation around the time of SXSW.’
Enterprise Ireland said the festival was a key event for Irish digital technology companies and that it always sought out ‘the most costeffective solutions’.
Other bills included around €1,000 for officials to get to and from their home airports as well as for transport once in Austin.
Mr Breen also travelled to Arab Health, an annual medical exhibition and conference held in Dubai in late January 2017.
Business-class flights for Mr Breen came to €5,451, flying with Emirates to Dubai and with Etihad on the return leg from Abu Dhabi.
On the trip, Mr Breen was put up in a ‘superior junior suite’ at the five-star Park Regis Kris Kin Hotel. The hotel features a rooftop swimming pool with guests invited to ‘float [their] cares away marvelling all the while at the uninterrupted views across Dubai’.
The bill came to €640, or the equivalent of €320 per night.
His business-class flight cost €4,419