GOVERNMENT SPENDING:AT A time when Charles J Haughey as taoiseach was telling the people of Ireland they were living beyond their means, he was seriously exceeding the official cost limits for State entertainment.
Haughey took office as taoiseach for the first time in December 1979 and, in a national broadcast the following month on the critical state of the economy, he declared: “As a community we are living away beyond our means.”
Newly released State papers reveal that in February that year, a lunch hosted by Haughey for then-president of the European Commission Roy Jenkins at Iveagh House was catered by the Royal Hibernian Hotel and the cost for eight people came to £323.20, or €1,409.15 in today’s terms.
This was £215.20 more than the amount laid down for such functions, which was £13.50 a person, or a total of £108, but a memo to the department of finance explained: “This excess arose due to general increases in the cost of catering and to the selection of a menu which was in keeping with the usual standards for such occasions hosted by the Taoiseach.”
About a third of the cost was for drinks, including wine, brandy, gin, sherry, vodka, whiskey, ale and lager, as well as cigarettes and Havana cigars, according to documents made available to the National Archives under the 30-year rule.
A letter from the Department of Finance to the secretary of the department of the taoiseach, dated March 31st, 1980, stated that the entertainment allocation for the latter’s department for the year was £30,000 or €130,800 today (£1 in 1980 is equivalent to €4.36 now; figures obtained from Central Bank).
This allocation was confined to lunches, dinners or receptions for “distinguished persons” hosted by a minister, minister of state or, exceptionally, an official deputising for the minister.
Civil servants and staff from semi-State bodies should not be entertained at such functions, “except where their entertainment is unavoidable”.
In a further letter sanctioning the additional expense at the lunch for Jenkins, the Department of Finance noted that expenditure limits had also been significantly exceeded at two other lunches hosted the same month by Haughey for the Iraqi ambassador and for visiting members of the European Parliament.
The letter pointed out that the excess that arose at the Jenkins lunch “was over twice the sanctioned per-person limit, and I am to request that every effort should be made in future to stay within the appropriate limits”.
But the best was yet to come, with a buffet lunch hosted by Haughey for the president of the German Federal Republic, Karl Carstens, at Garnish Island, Glengariff, Co Cork, on May 1st where the cost for 90 guests came to £3,136.99, including a bar charge of £556.99. The cost per guest of £34.86 was 2½ times the official limit.
President Carstens was well entertained: a dinner in his honour at Dublin Castle two nights earlier, hosted by his Irish counterpart, President Patrick Hillery, incurred a bill of £9,857.90 from the caterers, Royal Hibernian Hotel, including £357.30 for cigars and cigarettes.
Earlier the same day, Haughey hosted a lunch for the West German head of state at Iveagh House which cost £3,430.22 for 131 people, nearly twice the official level of £13.50 a guest.
Dublin Castle was also the venue five weeks later, on June 5th, for a reception hosted by Mr and Mrs Haughey in honour of the Church of Ireland archbishop of Armagh and primate of All Ireland, Dr John Ward Armstrong, and attended by 1,000 guests.
The cost of this event was £7551.86 or more than £3,000 in excess of the official limit of £4,500 for such a reception at £4.50 a guest.
The archbishop’s crest was done in flowers at a cost of £638 and additional floral decorations at Dublin Castle came to a further £828.
An official in the Department of Finance conveyed the sanctioning of the extra cost by his minister, Michael O’Kennedy, but the letter added that “this Department considers that the expenditure on flowers (£1,466) for the reception was very high”.
The letter concluded: “Every effort should be made in the future to keep expenditure of this kind within reasonable limits.”
By early August, one of Haughey’s officials was writing to the Department of Finance pointing out that £29,156.10 had already been spent, out of a £30,000 allocation for State entertainment, and seeking a further £10,000 for the Department of the Taoiseach.
A second letter from the same official two weeks later sought an allocation of £50,000 for the following year.
On September 10th, 1980, Haughey held a dinner at Abbeville, his home in Kinsealy, north Dublin, for the Portuguese prime minister, Francisco Sa Carneiro.
It was said to be the first time a taoiseach had entertained a visiting head of government in his private residence.
