Oireachtas foots bill for flags and fittings

Covid and inf lux of new TDs sees Leinster House expenses rise to €540,000

A LUNCH for an inter-faith group seminar costing €839, almost €1,900 for wooden flagpoles and base, and €1,276 for a bedframe and mattress, were among the bills sent to the Oireachtas last year.

The Oireachtas ran up a large furniture, facilities, and maintenance bill of more than €540,000 in 2020, higher than normal with the combined effects of the pandemic and the arrival of a new crop of TDs and senators following the elections.

Leinster House also got hit with a bill of more than €13,000 for luxury accommodation in Canada, for a parliamentary trip that fell afoul of Covid-19. A full refund was eventually secured.

Details of Covid-19 expenditure included €123 for a chair for the Oireachtas isolation room and €799.50 for a ‘high-back recliner chair’ to ensure those with symptoms could isolate in comfort. A bedframe and mattress for ‘rest rooms/Covid-19 isolation rooms’ were also purchased at a cost of €1,276, according to a database of expenditure released under Freedom of Information (FOI).

Four sanitising units cost €4,014 while €19,747 was spent on what were described as 94 ‘pod tables’.

An Ireland flag and flagpole stand cost €465, a further 10 Irish flags cost €369, while UN flags were also purchased for €453.

An ergonomic chair ‘designed for the taller’ person was purchased for €1,019 while the Oireachtas paid out another €2,312 for four ‘Freedom Headrest’ seats that have been described as ‘the gold standard in office seating’ by the New York Times.

A recliner sofa for the Kildare House ‘Rest Room’ cost €799.50. Also purchased were €9,298 in ‘sit/ stand’ desks, 10 wooden flagpoles and bases costing €1,894, and 10 coat stands for €1,094.

The Oireachtas also incurred bills for setting up home working arrangements, including one invoice for €14,483 for ‘working from home desks’.

The replacement of the underlay of a world map carpet in Leinster House cost €649.

Some €26,386 was spent on the ‘Direct Purchase Scheme’, which allows TDs and senators up to €750 each for the purchase of a mobile phone and kit.

A further €180,000 was spent on the constituency office establishment allowance, a payment of up to €8,000 for newly elected TDs to get a premises up and running.

Logged under the Oireachtas entertainment budget was €839.95 for a lunch for an inter-faith group attending a seminar, and €438 in sandwiches and Danish pastries for politics teachers.

A lunch with the Israeli ambassador cost €72, while the bill for a lunch with British Embassy officials came to €60.80.

Lunches related to an ongoing school programme on civic, social, and physical education were listed as having cost €1,543. The database listed just over €5,500 in gift expenditure, the vast bulk of which – a sum of €5,092 – went on 12 ‘Oireachtas flag presentation cases’. However, this had been invoiced in error to Leinster House and the purchase had in fact been made personally by an Oireachtas member.

Other gifts purchased included three €6 diffusers, a plated bud vase with a cost of €104, a silverplated candle snuffer for €74, and a silver-plated candle stick that set the taxpayer back €65.

The database also details spending of €73,526 in dealing with a variety of pests around the Leinster House complex.

This included pigeon foul removal, moth treatments, furniture moving, dealing with a silverfish infestation, placing new bait boxes, and deep cleaning of areas with evidence of vermin activity.

The Oireachtas overseas travel bill fell dramatically last year with all trips abroad effectively coming to an end midway through March.

However, Leinster House did initially get stung with a sizable bill for pre-booked rooms for a meeting of the Organisation for Security & Cooperation in Europe in Vancouver, Canada. Emails with the luxury Fairmont Waterfront detail how more than $20,000 Canadian dollars had been wrongly billed to the Oireachtas credit card. The credit card had only been supplied to guarantee the rooms.

The hotel sent its ‘sincere apologies’ and arranged for a full refund of the charges.

‘Charge of €1,276 for isolation room bed’

‘€73,526 spent on dealing with a variety of pests’