Make-up, mobiles and miscellaneous ... that’ll be €6m ministers, please

THE Government has spent in excess of €6 million on mobile phone bills, photographers, media monitoring, entertainment and newspapers this year, figures have revealed.

About €3m was spent on the mobile phone bills of department employees, more than €240,285 on photographers, €604,671 on media monitoring, €1.6m on entertainment and in excess of €750,000 on newspapers and magazines.

The Taoiseach’s media monitoring unit, which employs six people, has cost €373,524 to date this year. Despite having press officers based in each of the departments, some have recruited private companies for monitoring and press cutting services.