Over €87,000 spent upgrading underused Steward’s Lodge in Dublin’s Phoenix Park

The Office of Public Works (OPW) has spent more than €87,000 in the last three years upgrading Steward’s Lodge, a four-bedroom house on the grounds of Farmleigh House in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, which was refurbished in 2006 for use as a taoiseach’s residence.

Figures released by the OPW show €43,950 was paid to a company called Avongrove to refurbish the two-storey Victorian lodge’s windows. A further €43,390 was paid to Conex for civil works to the gravel paths at the house.

Both sets of works took place during 2021 and an OPW spokesman said no further works had taken place since at the property.

Day-to-day expenditure on the house, including general maintenance, cleaning and repairs, is not listed separately by the OPW and is instead included in the costs of maintaining Farmleigh Estate, so there is “no way of separating out expenditure on consumables”.

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Previous expenditure on the property includes €12,500 in 2013 on brick paving and gravel in the front driveway, and €12,490 on repairs to a garden wall in 2016.

[ One-third of State residences in parks and public spaces are vacant ]

While it was envisaged that the property would become an official residence to the taoiseach of the day, it has been used rarely over the past 16 years.

‘Lavish perk’

Bertie Ahern never used the house. It was said at the time that he feared it would be viewed as a “lavish perk” by the electorate. Brian Cowen and Enda Kenny, meanwhile, used it on only a handful of occasions.

Leo Varadkar spent last Christmas at the house, just days after becoming Taoiseach for a second time. The Fine Gael leader stayed in the lodge on December 24th, 25th and 26th, the OPW said.

Nobody stayed at the house during 2021 and no one has spent a night in it to date this year. Mr Varadkar also spent time at the property in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. His use of it became known when he was photographed socialising in the Phoenix Park in May 2020.

In response to questions at the time, a spokesman said Mr Varadkar had not travelled more than 5km from his home as he was staying in Steward’s Lodge, partly due to its superior office and video conferencing facilities, which allowed him to work from home at the height of the pandemic.

Nightly fee

To avoid a benefit in kind, taoisigh, including Mr Varadkar, pay a €50 nightly fee to use the house. The OPW confirmed Mr Varadkar had paid such a fee for his use of the property last Christmas.

The house contains a small study, a kitchen, a conservatory and two downstairs reception rooms, while there are four bedrooms upstairs, one of which is en suite.

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In response to a parliamentary question asked by then Labour TD Kevin Humphreys in 2019, the OPW said the house was valued at between €800,000 and €850,000.

There had been several previous attempts to create an official residence for the taoiseach before the refurbishment of Steward’s Lodge, but none came to fruition. In the 1970s, a competition was held to design one, but it was never built.

There were also plans in the 1970s to turn the former Apostolic Nunciature in the Phoenix Park into an official residence, but they also fell through and the building was later demolished.