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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance.
ā¬1,400 blue book voucher courtesy of Nissan at the end of the programme. Ireland, as I'm sure you know, will hold the presidency of the Council of the European Union from the 1st of July to the 31st of December this year. It's a huge undertaking and the final bill is likely to be close to ā¬300 million.
Eyebrows were raised this week when we heard that 100 luxury vehicles have been bought at a cost of over ā¬6 million. So where else is the money being spent and will it all be worth it? I'm joined now by Emma McEvoy, Assistant Professor in Law at Dublin City University, who has been looking at the numbers around this. Good morning, Emma.
Thanks, Clare. And thanks very much for having me on.
You're very welcome. I think our attention was drawn to all of this at the news about the 100 luxury vehicles and the price tag of 6 million euro. But there's a lot more spending to be done, isn't there?
There's a significant amount more spending to be done. And while President Trump might like inflation, it's really not helping the budget for the European presidency at This is going to be probably our most expensive presidency or hosting the presidency in years.
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Chapter 2: What are the financial implications of Ireland's EU presidency?
Like in 2013, we hosted, we hosted it for 51 million. And now we're looking at a figure of 300 million. And I suppose the difference would be, and it all kind of comes down to it, heard of that budget now is going to be going on security and defense, and that's going to take up the majority of it.
Things that we didn't have to look at in 2013 that we have to look at now, um, in relation to counter-terrorism, counter drone capabilities, additional protection for heads of government, ministers, EU officials, additional guarded deployments. And then we have other bills for staffing, administration, conference and events, building and infrastructure. Bills that we probably didn't see before.
In 2013, we were really in an austere time and we spent a lot of the events in Dublin Castle or we hosted them in Brussels. where this time around now, we are looking to have events all across the island of Ireland, all across Ireland. And even one of our first big events we'll have with President Ursula von der Leyen, that will take place in Cork. So that has significantly increased the budget.
And as you mentioned there, free transport. The contract for the delivery of transport for the high-level events is quite high.
Chapter 3: How much is being spent on luxury vehicles for the presidency?
That is 6 million. even when you look into that, like that's quite a figure.
Just on spreading the events around the country, there is a hope, you know, and people in business will know this, that you have to speculate to accumulate and that there might be a bounce back from this spend and from putting all of the effort into having events in places outside of Dublin, that there might be a tourism kickback from this. Is that a factor?
Oh, I hope that's going to be the most positive impact factor in relation to this. And we can see it already. Some of the contracts that have already been awarded have been awarded to local companies across the country. I think a company in Kilkenny has received a 135,000 euro contract.
That's a lovely contract that was for the supply of woolen scarves that will be given to EU dignitaries as a present. We've also seen a Dublin company win a contract for 570 and that was for the supply of branded stationery and merchandise. Now, that contract looks like it's going to be subcontracted soon.
To date, I think we've had Ā£350,000 awarded to restaurant, hospitality and catering services contracts. And what's really nice about that contract, because it will certainly be in the millions, is it's an ongoing contract, one that we normally don't see the government engaging in.
So it's called this dynamic services contract where they'll consistently allow for smaller companies, micro businesses, smaller catering companies and hospitality services. They'll all be able to bid in for contracts. to write the whole presidency. So we're not going to see just one large company winning the full contract.
Just looking at the overall cost and we're looking at the 300 million, I know that you've said that there are all sorts of concerns here that weren't there the last time that we hosted the presidency, particularly around security and security
But if you look at Denmark, who hosted the EU presidency in 2025, only last year, their budget was significantly less, wasn't it, than what we're about to spend?
Yeah, Denmark has, like in 2025, I think they spent a total of 80 million. And Cyprus, while they've still got a month to go, they're coming in at 80 million as well. And they took a much more prudent approach in relation to defence and security. They had a lot more
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