The Government has spent €880,000 on private jets to fly the Taoiseach and Tanaiste around the globe since last year.
The massive charter bill came as the government Learjet has been grounded and has not been tasked with a single mission in 2024.
Figures from the Department of Defence show that €617,700 was spent on private jets last year, along with €269,461 in the first four months of 2024.
One flight cost €158,000 to jet Tanaiste Micheal Martin from Dublin to Cairo and Tel Aviv last November for talks over Irish citizens in Gaza. Another charter flight from April taking Mr Martin to Cairo, El Arish, and Amman may prove more costly, as the department are still “awaiting [an] invoice” for that trip.
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Private planes were leased on 15 occasions since the beginning of 2023, all for trips involving either the Taoiseach or the Tanaiste.
In May 2023, a jet was hired at a cost of €72,000 to bring then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to Chisinau in Moldova on an overnight trip for a meeting of EU leaders. In October, an aircraft was again chartered to take Mr Varadkar to Brussels, also for a single night, with the bill coming to €48,000.
A sum of €24,700 was spent on a jet to bring the former Taoiseach to Copenhagen in November 2023 before a €46,249 trip to Brussels in December of last year.
The bill for Mr Varadkar’s trip to Pristina, Podgorica, and Skopje in the Balkans in January 2024 came to €108,864, according to details released by the Department of Defence under Freedom of Information laws. A further €59,108 was spent in late January for an overnight trip to Zurich for the Taoiseach and €45,674 for another journey to Brussels later that month.
Further bills included €70,743 for a trip to Munich in February, €97,383 for a charter to Brussels in March, and €87,576 for a jet to fly to Brussels and Warsaw in April of this year.
The government has tendered for a new €45million aircraft to replace the ailing Learjet, but military sources said the process is likely to be lengthy. In tender documents, the Department of Defence has said they are looking for an aircraft with no less than 10 seats, a range of more than 4,500 miles for transatlantic travel, and the capability of being retrofitted with defensive aids if that was ever required.
Asked about the costs incurred on leasing private planes, the Department of Defence said they had no further comment to make.
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