So what wine is Gerry quaffing for €30 a bottle?
GERRY Adams sparked a wave of derision in the Dáil yesterday – after saying that €30 was the cost of a bottle of wine.
The Sinn Féin leader made the revealing comment about his taste for fine wine during a debate on lower State pensions for women who had to leave work because of the marriage bar.
He suggested the shortfall was equal to the cost of a bottle of wine – although €30 is well above the average price in Ireland’s supermarkets.
‘I mean €30 is a bottle of wine...’ he said, adding, after a pause: ‘...eh, or some such ornamentation for the people in the Cabinet.’
However, his back-pedalling didn’t
Extravagant taste in wine
cut any ice with fellow deputies. Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen was first to pick up on Mr Adams’ seemingly extravagant choice of tipple, speculating that: ‘He is sipping his glass of wine watching Oireachtas Report.’
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar also rounded on the Sinn Féin president, saying: ‘It is not surprising that he thinks a bottle of wine costs €30. I know the deputy likes to travel first class whenever he can find someone to pay for him. But I am not sure who is buying his bottles of wine for him. It is some bottle of wine that costs €30.’
The Taoiseach’s comment was a reference to a controversy that erupted in 2013 when it emerged that Mr Adams had travelled to New York the summer before, during which he underwent what is believed to have been a prostate procedure. The operation, estimated to cost €30,000, was paid for by an Irish-American businessman, while the flights were paid for by Friends of Sinn Féin.
The party added that the procedure wasn’t the sole purpose of the trip. Mr Adams later said the operation had not been available here.
Independent TD Mattie McGrath yesterday heckled Mr Adams, asking whether he would be drinking his wine with smoked salmon.
Mr Adams would not have had to travel far to find a bottle of wine for less than €30. In 2013, the Oireachtas launched its own wine range for €21 a bottle.
More than 2,000 bottles were sold in its first year.
A spokeswoman said at the time: ‘The Oireachtas restaurant has availed of a service, at no extra cost, provided by the suppliers of the restaurant house wine, to replace the label on our existing wine to one tailored for the Houses of the Oireachtas.’
‘The wine is the same but has a Houses of the Oireachtas label. This is a common enough practice in the restaurant industry.’