JOHN O'DONOGHUE'S EXPENSES:HORSE RACING Ireland has released new details of expenses incurred by Ceann Comhairle John O'Donoghue when he attended horseracing festivals in Melbourne, Aintree and Cheltenham during his term as minister for arts, sports and tourism.
The racing authority picked up bills of more than €20,000 on behalf of ministerial delegations led by Mr O’Donoghue to nine international race meetings between 2003 and 2007.
These figures are in addition to details of foreign travel expenses by the Ceann Comhairle, already released into the public domain.
The highest individual cost item listed is the room costs at the Radisson Hotel in Liverpool which, according to the invoice, came to almost €900 a night in 2006.
Mr O’Donoghue and his wife Kate Ann stayed at the hotel for two nights over two successive years in 2005 and 2006 while attending the Aintree Grand National.
The invoice from a travel company to Horse Racing Ireland lists the cost of the room at €899 a night, or €1,798 overall and that of his special adviser at a little over €700 a night. However, there may be a component of the Aer Lingus flights from Dublin to Liverpool included in the item.
The documents also show that limousine hire during the three- day trip to Aintree the previous year cost more than €600.
Documents released to The Irish Timesunder the Freedom of Information Act show that Horse Racing Ireland paid a portion of the expenses incurred by the Minister, his wife and the departmental delegation for four successive trips to the Cheltenham festival between 2004 and 2007, for three Grand National festivals at Aintree and for two trips to the Melbourne Cup in Australia.
A total of €11,716 of this amount was specifically attributable to Mr O’Donoghue and Ms O’Donoghue, who accompanied him on all of the trips, bar one.
The spending figures are additional to those paid on the same trips by the department (which have been disclosed) and by Tourism Ireland (most of which have yet to be disclosed). The information released to date shows that the department and the two agencies split the cost for these trips.
The documents show it paid for flights, accommodation, restaurant bills and limousine hire for Mr O’Donoghue, his wife and his special adviser on the trips to racing festivals.
The Ceann Comhairle released figures on Friday which showed he has incurred some €90,000 expenses in foreign travel since taking office in June 2007. Earlier disclosures revealed a total spend of more than €500,000 when he held ministerial office between 2002 and 2007.
When Mr O’Donoghue attended the Melbourne Cup in Australia in October 2003, Horse Racing Ireland paid Tourism Ireland €1,090 towards the cost of airline tickets purchased for the department general secretary Phil Furlong, his wife and three other department officials including his press adviser, Tony Cotter.
The departments costs for that trip came to a further €4,521.
In March 2004, Mr and Ms O’Donoghue and Mr Cotter stayed in Lypiatt House in Cheltenham during the racing festival. The accommodation costs were approximately €1,800 (£1,339) or €300 per night per room for the two rooms.
The following month at Aintree, the bill for two nights of accommodation at the Crowne Plaza for the minister and Mr Cotter in Liverpool came to £800.
Other expenses picked up by Horse Racing Ireland were a racecourse lunch for the ministerial party at Green’s of St James (£121.88), a further lunch at Bishbam Green Brewery (£111.71) and limousine hire for the ministerial party over four days, including racecourse transfers (£255.56).
The total amount that Horse Racing Ireland paid for the two-day trip was €1,748.45.
The following year, in March 2005, Mr and Ms O’Donoghue stayed five nights in the Lypiatt House Hotel while attending the Cheltenham festival.
Accommodation costs for the minister, his wife and Mr Cotter in Cheltenham came to £2,001.64. At the then prevailing exchange rates with sterling, the nightly room cost was more than €280.
During the course of the meeting, one bill for dinner for nine including the O’Donoghues came to £379.50 ( Horse Racing Ireland attributes £84.33 to the minister and his wife) while another dinner at Le Petit Blanc cost £379.50 (£143.48 is the portion of the cost attributed to the O’Donoghues).
The total cost to the racing authority of the ministerial trip to Cheltenham was approximately €3,142, but that did not include flights. Those costs were in addition to the €10,524.75 incurred by the department during the same trip, which also included St Patrick’s Day events in London.
Mr and Ms O’Donoghue attended the Aintree Grand National in April 2005 and stayed at the Radisson hotel in Liverpool. The total cost of the trip was an estimated €4,186 to the taxpayer. Flights and the three-night stay at the Radisson hotel cost €2,691 for the O’Donoghues and Mr Cotter.
Other costs associated with the trip were: food and beverage bill for the O’Donoghues at the hotel, £262.97; limousine hire, €601.31; dinner for the ministerial party, £234.38; and a second dinner the following night for the ministerial party, £159.30.
In October 2005, during Mr O’Donoghue’s attendance at the Melbourne Cup as part of a tourism promotion trip to Australia and New Zealand, Horse Racing Ireland picked up only one item of expense, a Aus$49.50 bill for racecourse food and beverages.
The minister’s department picked up a further €1,404.28 in expenses during that trip, while the unspecified balance (flights and accommodation) was paid by Tourism Ireland.
During the Cheltenham Festival in 2006, Horse Racing Ireland paid five-night accommodation costs at the Lypiatt House Hotel for the O’Donoghues which amounted to approximately €1,554 or some €300 a night.
In Aintree, the following month, the accommodation and flights costs amounted to €3,786.
The invoice lists the costs of the O’Donoghue’s room as €899 a night plus in excess of €700 a night for the room for the adviser.
The overall cost of the two-night trip for the delegation of four, including Tamarisk Doyle of Horse Racing Ireland, was €5,048.
The O’Donoghues attended the Cheltenham Festival for the fourth straight year in 2007, again staying at the Lypiatt House Hotel.
The cost for accommodation for five nights and a dinner came to an estimated €1,881. No other costs are recorded for that trip.