Haughey blew budget on entertaining

FORMER taoiseach Charles Haughey was spending more than double his official entertainment allowance on wining and dining visiting dignitaries within weeks of his infamous “living beyond our means” speech.

Government files from 1980 released today by the National Archives show officials in the Department of Finance tried to rein in the taoiseach’s expenditure without success.

Alarm bells rang early in his first term when a lunch for then European Commission president, Roy Jenkins, cost three times the official limit.