Fury over €4.4m upgrade of home for ambassador

A €4.4 million make-over of the Canadian residence of an Irish ambassador has been condemned as an outrageous abuse of taxpayers’ money at a time when the country is in economic freefall.

Fine Gael Foreign Affairs spokesman Billy Timmins said the costly upgrade of the residence of ambassador Declan Kelly, in Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa, was “an insult to every single taxpayer”.

His comments followed weekend reports in a Canadian newspaper that construction works had just finished after a 15-month project to gut and re-fit what was once a “modest stone house”.

According to The National Post newspaper, the ambassador’s residence has “twice the floor space of the [Canadian] Prime Minister’s official residence... with a reconstruction tab exceeding $7 million (€4.4m) and is now a 24,000-square-foot, four-storey house... the accommodation envy of the diplomatic corps in Ottawa”.

One construction worker told The National Post: “All that’s missing is a throne for Caesar.”

The report goes on to say that the original house has been fitted out with vast new wings including a dining and living room with an upstairs featuring a 2,000-square-foot suite and bathroom for the privacy of the ambassador and his wife.

Blueprints show what appear to be eight bedrooms and 10 bathrooms plus a pair of powder rooms, a sauna, a wine cellar, hobby area, data room, recreation room, study, library, gymnasium with a green padded floor, two kitchens including a commercial-sized operation, a chef’s office, and what appear to be five fireplaces.

“If nothing else, this prime housing asset on Ottawa’s Park Avenue proves someone still has the luck of the Irish,” the report says.

Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin admitted it was “a very significant sum of money, but we are an exporting country, and that is something that has been lost in this debate”.

“The embassies play a very key role in helping to win inward investment and support Enterprise Ireland – don’t understate that, and I wouldn’t rubbish it either,” Mr Martin said.

Speaking on RTÉ radio’s This Week programme, Mr Martin said that during “relatively better economic times the department did enhance and improve our facilities overseas” and that the Canadian make-over had been commissioned “some years back”.

However, Mr Martin said there would be “very little enhancement, or upgrading, of facilities in the next couple of years”.

Mr Timmins said information he had unearthed showed one of the chandelier’s in the ambassador’s house had cost €20,000. However a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs said a sum of approximately €20,000 had been spent “on light fittings in public spaces”.

Mr Timmins said those “bearing the brunt of the recession at home are entitled to feel infuriated at the Government’s decision to prioritise funding for a ‘palace’ over special needs assistants, hospital wards and social welfare payments”.