Paddy’s Day junkets cost a whopping €460k

ST PATRICK is not only responsible for making snakes disappear from Ireland, he also manages to get rid of the majority of ministers as well — at least for a few days in March anyway.

Taxpayers forked out e460,000 so the Taoiseach and 25 government colleagues could roam the globe on the national saint’s day last year, new figures reveal.

While Finance Minister Brian Lenihan never misses a chance to tell the nation it is living well beyond its means, when he was in the justice portfolio last March he did not flinch at the e37,052 cost of him keeping Ireland’s image alive in that most un-Irish of cities — Boston.