Michael D staff quiet on hotel bill for reasons of security...

MICHAEL D Higgins’s staff can’t say how much the State spent putting him up in a luxury Swiss hotel – for security reasons.

He has been criticised after a report claimed he stayed at the Beau-Rivage Hotel in Geneva for his June 7 address to the United Nations.

The same report claimed the President stayed for two nights at the hotel where suites, including the Sissi, the Louis II and the Richard Wagner suites, can cost up to €3,000 a night.

A spokesman for the President said last night: ‘The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade manage the President’s overseas travel arrangements. For security and other reasons, we do not comment on the President’s accommodation.’

Last night the Department of Foreign Affairs said: ‘We are not in a position to provide details on the President’s travel.’

Why he needed to stay at the hotel in the first place is still a mystery.

The determined refusal by presidential staff or the Department of Foreign Affairs to clarify the situation has drawn into sharp focus what campaigners say is a lack of transparency at the Áras.

It has ensured continued interest not just in the issue but also in the presidential finances in general. It has also led to a call for these to be the subject of Freedom of Information legislation, which they are not currently.

Presidential aides insisted last night ‘the finances of the Office of the President are a matter of public record’. They say the Comptroller & Auditor General audits the accounts of the President’s Office yearly and publishes its findings. Details are scant, say campaigners.

For example, €150,000 was spent on ‘travel and subsistence’ in 2016 – the last year such information is available. But there is no breakdown of how the money was spent. There was a further €302,000 spent in ‘training and development and incidental expenses’ but no other details.