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13th Dec 2018

Cork City Council spent an obscene amount of money on a visit by Prince Charles earlier this year

Carl Kinsella

Cork

I’m sorry, how much to polish the doorknobs?

How much does it cost to polish all the door handles in Cork city? You might be surprised.

Thanks to the transparency by Cork City Council councillor Thomas Gould, the expenditure behind Prince Charles and his wife Camilla’s one-day visit to Cork earlier this year has been revealed.

The breakdown features several eye-popping sums, such as €4,000 for “sanding and varnishing,” €30,000 for “installation of lighting” and of course, just under €6,000 for “polishing door handles.”

Banners and signs cost the council over €10,000, as did the hire of barriers for the visit. All told, the brief visit ended up costing €203,761 in public money.

Gould, a Sinn Féin councillor, expressed his outrage over the spending in a message on Twitter, which read: “Cork City Council’s spent €19,770 for a dinner for Charles & Camilla along with 70 guests. In total €203,761. I have no issue with them visiting but I cannot stand over this type of expenditure when we have the high levels of homelessness, hospital waiting lists € much more.”

You can check out the full details of the astounding expenditure in the document below.

The figures are so stunning that the story has even been picked up by the international media, with CNN reporting on it today.

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Cork