Over €13,000 wasted on cancelled flight and accommodation bookings for TDs and Senators

Ken Foxe

More than €13,000 has been wasted by Leinster House on cancelled flight and accommodation bookings for TDs, Senators, and staff.

The non-refundable costs were run up on dozens of air fares and hotel stays since the beginning of last year.

In one case, €900 was spent on an airline ticket for a TD or Senator to attend the UN Conference of State Parties last year.

However, the person did not end up travelling, according to Oireachtas records.

A sum of €884 was spent on a return flight to Geneva for a general assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

The TD or Senator involved did not attend though, and the cost of the airfare was not refundable.

Costs of €717 from a flight to Seattle and San Francisco for St Patrick’s Day celebrations last year were also lost.

Other unrecoverable bills included a €473 booking at the Courtyard Downtown Marriott in Toronto for a Legislative Assemblies Business Continuity Network event and a €322 stay at the Hilton Garden Inn in New York.

The database of non-refundable costs reveals €13,211 has been lost since January 2024, with bills ranging from just €3 up to €900.

Of the total, around €9,900 was airfares, with €2,681 for hotel costs, and €577 for train fares.

The Oireachtas said that €7,579 of the costs related to travel by TDs and Senators while €5,631 concerned their own staff.

In some cases, the entire cost of an airfare or a hotel booking was lost while in others part of the cost was recoverable.

A source in Leinster House said: “There are pros and cons to having refundable travel. Plans can be changed but that option is usually more expensive.

“In many of these cases, the cancellations would have been made at very late notice due to illness or other circumstances outside the control of the person meant to travel.”