Over the course of the past year, Gardaí have been paid in excess of €6.8 million for their work policing concerts, sporting events, festivals, and escorts of exceptionally large cargo on the nation’s road network, reports Breaking News.
The largest fee paid by Festival Republic for a garda presence at Electric Picnic last year was €349,110.
The next highest bill was €324,900 that MCD paid An Garda Síochána for a series of concerts that took place in Marlay Park during the summer, and the National Ploughing Championships organisers also incurred a significant amount of money, with gardaí paid €227,421 for their work at the event last autumn, reports Breaking News.
Other notable payments included €136,6000 from the PGA European Tour for the Irish Open golf event held at the K Club in September of last year, and €181,400 from Festival Republic for a run of concerts at Malahide Castle.
Events at Cork’s Musgrave Park, Dublin’s St Anne’s Park, Waterford’s RDS, and Phoenix Park police for the yearly Bloom Festival completed the list of the 10 most expensive bills. These were priced between around €104,000 and €75,000.
The 10 biggest invoices, which added up to almost €1.65 million, had previously been paid by the firms and promoters, according to the Gardaí, and no money remained unpaid, reports Breaking News.
They also gave information on the five businesses who paid the highest non-public duty policing costs in 2017 in accordance with freedom of information rules.
Mar-Train huge Haulage, which specialises in moving extremely huge goods including wind turbines and other industrial gear, topped the list after paying €907,068 to gardaí, reports Breaking News.
The largest payment made to the Garda Síochána last year was €874,849 by concert producers MCD, while the IRFU spent close to €350,000 for match policing, primarily at the Aviva Stadium.
According to the figures made public, Munster GAA also paid an additional €236,259 for a range of football and hurling matches.
An information note said: “[They would] seek to engage the services of members of An Garda Síochána to perform duties to which they would not normally be assigned. Members of An Garda Síochána have been made available for the performance of such duties and the state has charged for their services,” reports Breaking News.
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