Cork City Council spent €200k spent on visit of Charles and Camilla

Cork City Council spent some €200,000 on Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla’s day-long visit to the city in June.

It includes a near €6,000 bill for nibbles and drinks at the civic reception for the royal couple in City Hall on June 14, and almost €20,000 on a VIP invite-only banquet in the Crawford Gallery’s Long Room that night.

The meal, served to around 70 guests, and which featured local produce including Ardsallagh goat’s cheese, roast rack of east Cork lamb, and a selection of Cork farmhouse cheeses, cost around €285 a head.

The spend, which emerged at a finance committee meeting in City Hall on Monday, drew criticism from Sinn Féin councillors Thomas Gould and Chris O’Leary and Solidarity councillor Fiona Ryan. The breakdown was provided to the Irish Examiner yesterday.

The royal couple attended a number of formal events in Cork City and county on June 14 during their Irish visit. The city council was responsible for the civic reception in City Hall, the English Market tour, and the gala dinner at the Crawford.

The council’s head of corporate affairs, Paul Moynihan, defended the spend and said almost €100,000 was linked to the “acceleration of planned medium-term refurbishment works at City Hall”.

Catering for the three-hour civic reception attended by 180 guests cost €5,828, while €9,330 was spent on “front-loading” of planned visual marketing of the English Market for its 230th birthday and on visual marketing of the city centre.

“Cork City Council has received very positive feedback from stakeholders following the visit, with the environmental improvements in particular praised by city centre stakeholders,” said Mr Moynihan.

“Reflecting our experience of the royal visit of 2011, the benefits to the city and the region will be huge and will be felt for years to come.”