Taxpayers’ huge bill for royal security
IRISH taxpayers shelled out nearly €300,000 for the Garda protection of newlyweds Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – but it was only a fraction of the €24m cost of guarding his royal grandmother.
Meanwhile, the State stumped up nearly €3m for Garda protection of US vice president Mike Pence in September and over €11m for the Garda detail around US president Donald Trump during his two-day visit in June.
The figures released under a Freedom of Information request give an insight into the ring of steel around Queen Elizabeth during the first visit of a British monarch to Ireland in a century.
It also shows the much more relaxed security presence for Prince Harry, who is now sixth in line to the British throne.
A statement from An Garda Síochána said: ‘This expenditure relates to salaries, wages, allowances, travel, subsistence and incidental expenses.’ The two-day visit of Harry and Meghan last July was the couple’s first official overseas trip.
During their whirlwind tour, they took in a summer garden party at the British Ambassador’s Irish residence and met Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Government Buildings.
They also stopped by Áras an Uachtaráin and strolled across the cobbles at Trinity College.
The security bill came to €283,245, whereas for the the State visit of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip to Ireland from May 17 to May 20, 2011 it was €24,077,757 – over 80 times as much.
The visit set in train one of the largest security operations in the nation’s history. Former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan told a 2014 RTÉ documentary, Insiders, how there were ‘very significant arrests’ made to protect the monarch.
He said: ‘On one of the locations up in Dorset Street, later on when we doing a sweep of the area, we found a very viable improvised explosive device.’
‘We found a viable explosive device’