An Garda Síochána spent €590,000 on hotel accommodation over three nights for members policing the May 2024 Uefa Europa League final in Dublin, of which €248,500 was spent on accommodation that was never used, the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has said.
A month before the match, the force had 727 rooms booked, with a potential occupancy of 1,454 members, but the Garda Representative Association complained shared rooms were unsatisfactory, it said.
An Garda Síochána pointed out twin rooms which were booked as single rooms cost almost the same when the single occupancy supplement was added, the C&AG report said.
When the force cancelled 246 rooms in the run-up to the special policing operation, it was charged €91,577 by six of the 11 affected hotels. It also booked an additional 59 rooms during this period.
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This left the force with 500 twin and 40 single-occupancy rooms, providing potential accommodation for 1,040 members per night, for three nights, the report said.
However, when the manual spreadsheet allocating the rooms was examined, it was discovered that an average of 315 beds were unused each night, at a cost of €145,698.
It was also found 13 Garda members were assigned two rooms in the same hotel, and 11 were assigned two hotel rooms in two different hotels, the report said.
An audit also found there had been 145 subsistence claims for members that included claims for accommodation from those who had been allocated hotel rooms.
The cost of the overlapping payments was €32,598, according to the C&AG report.
The preparations for the special policing operation, code-named Operation Argillite, included arrangements for meal allowances.
When the C&AG examined the payments, it found a potential overpayment of €2,408 in 108 cases of claims for meal allowances where deductions should have been made in respect of meals directly provided.
The total policing costs for the event, which saw more than 20,000 people travel to Dublin from abroad to see Italian club Atalanta beat German club Bayer Leverkusen 3–0, was €7.8 million.
The largest item on the bill, which was paid by the State, was overtime payments of €4.92 million.
In its conclusions on the cost of the policing operation, the C&AG criticised the level of expenditure on accommodation that went unused.
“The level of wastage does not represent value for money,” it said.
It also identified more than “250 cases of potential overpayment of travel and subsistence claims totalling €35,000” and said that this was likely to be an underestimate.
“An Garda Síochána has stated that internal audit will review this information and all overpayments substantiated will be recouped,” the report said.
Among the weaknesses identified by the C&AG was the use of a manual process when allocating hotel rooms during the 2024 operation.
“An Garda Síochána will investigate the use of a more sophisticated method for the allocation of accommodation, to reduce the risk of administrative errors,” the force said in response.
