Bush visit cost taxpayer €8m

Garda manpower for policing President George W Bush’s visit to Ireland cost the State a staggering €8m, it emerged tonight.

Joe Costello, Labour Party justice spokesman, said taxpayers had the right to question whether the huge expenses were warranted for what appeared to be a pre-election photo-opportunity for the President.

The Department of Justice confirmed 169,021 Garda overtime hours were required to provide security for the 18-hour visit last June.

“I think the Irish taxpayer is entitled to ask if we got value for the huge expenditure involved in what appeared to be basically a pre-election photo-opportunity for President Bush,” he said.

“Any political leader coming to this country has the right to expect that all appropriate action is taken to ensure his or her security.

However, crime-harassed communities, which are being starved of Garda resources, will be astonished to find the Government had no difficulty in coming up with apparently limitless Garda resources for the visit and that money did not appear to be a problem.”

The joint Garda and Defence Forces protection plan was billed as the biggest ever security operation in the history of the State.

More than 2,000 troops, heavy armoured vehicles, four naval ships and Air Corps planes surrounded Shannon Airport in Co Clare as the President’s flew in for a EU-US summit meeting in June of this year.

A massive police operation involving 4,000 officers was also mounted outside the walls of the exclusive Dromoland Castle Hotel in Co Clare, where the President spent a night.

Mr Costello said the figure was expected to rise. He said Michael McDowell, Justice Minister, could not give a final tally due to claims and other outstanding miscellaneous charges.

With Garda overtime costs running at around 25 euro per hour the total cost of the overtime alone is understood to have amounted to around 4.225m euro.

Mr Costello said that based on an annual average salary of around 40,000 euro for a garda, the 8.027m euro would be sufficient to pay for 200 additional officers.