The final cost to the State of the papal Mass in 2018 in the Phoenix Park was just under €9 million, new figures show.
Details released to Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy showed the final bill of €8,996,809.17 for the Phoenix Park event included charges such as €574,000 for portable chemical toilets, €822,000 for pedestrian trackways, €189,000 for the hire of a marquee, almost €200,000 for demarcation posts for crowd control, and €115,000 for festival flags and pedestrian bunting.
It also emerged that four sets of gates at the perimeter of the Phoenix Park have not yet been rehung, almost three years after they were removed for the visit of Pope Francis in 2018.
Seven pairs of gates and ancillary structures were removed from both pedestrian and vehicular entrances to facilitate “free and safe movement” for the papal Mass in the park in August that year, and to allow for the repair and refurbishment of the historic gates and surrounding stonework.
The costs were revealed in a detailed account of expenditure released Ms Murphy following a parliamentary question to Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath.
Public importance
Ms Murphy who asked about the final bill as part of financial questions about a number of issues, said the expenditure on big events like this is part of a “balance sheet” between public importance and a purely economic factor.
The Kildare North TD said any such large-scale event “will have another side to it other than just the cost. There’s how important it was to particular people.
“I’m not religious myself but for some people it would have been an important event, although I do think there was an expectation that there would have been a bigger crowd than in fact ended up going to the event.”
She pointed to other major events including the arrival of the US president or Queen Elizabeth’s visit in 2011.
“You can just count these things purely on cost but for some people they’re pretty important events in their own right.”
The visit of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip and that of former US president Barack Obama, both in 2011, cost €36 million.
The separate visits in 2019 of former US president Donald Trump and former vice-president Mike Pence cost the State close to €18 million.
Expectation
Ms Murphy said, however, she was surprised it was taking so long to replace the gates. “The expectation was that things that had to be done to bring a crowd in and allow traffic flow. The expectation also was that it would be reversed very quickly,” even with the refurbishment.
The Minister said all seven pairs of gates have now been refurbished and returned to the OPW for rehanging, but work on four was “paused at the start of January 2021 due to the requirements of the Level 5 restrictions of the Government’s plan for living with Covid-19”.
Work on the Knockmaroon gates were undertaken in situ and were completed in August 2020, while the North Circular Road gates were fully restored and rehung in early December last year.
Work on rehanging the remaining gates at Castleknock, Chapelizod, Blackhorse Avenue, Cabra and Islandbridge is expected to be completed by the end of July.
Ms Murphy said, however, that the pandemic cannot be blamed for the delay. “You couldn’t put that down to Covid. This is something that significantly pre-dated that.”
