Executive Spends £4.5 Million on Wining and Dining
02 March 2012
Statement by TUV leader and North Antrim MLA Jim Allister:“Last month I exposed the fact that Stormont spends almost £5 million a year on spin doctors. Having collated answers to other written questions it would seem that the Executive requires a small army of caterers as well as a battalion of press officers. And, still the First Minister isn't satisfied with their media control!
“The public will no doubt be shocked to learn that over the past five years four and a half million pounds of their money has been spent by government departments on hospitality. The worst offender is the Office of the Joint First Ministers which has spent an astonishing £826,760 on wining and dining since 2006.
“In one year alone (2008/09) Northern Ireland taxpayers contributed £1,228,533 to the cost of hospitality by government departments. That means that the Northern Ireland Executive was spending, on average of over £3,000 a day on hospitality. It is still spending nearly £10,000 per week.
“It is also noteworthy that most departments did not include hospitality provided by their arms-length bodies when responding to my question. So the overall figure will be much higher. I already know from a previous answer that Invest NI alone, for example, spent £2m in just 5 years.
“Yes, there has been a measure of reduction in spending of late but across the departments the squander is still far too high.
“These figures demonstrate once again just how out of touch Stormont is with the needs of ordinary people – particularly at a time when many are finding themselves out of work or suffering pay cuts”.
