MORE than 10,000 pints of Guinness were knocked back in the Dail’s two bars last year.
A total of 10,031 pints of plain were supped in the Houses of the Oireachtas’ two licensed premises.
And with a pint of the black stuff at Leinster House costing just €5.20 — a fraction of the price of nearby city centre bars — it’s clear our elected representatives are getting more bang for their buck than most drinkers.
The next most popular draft beer purchase was Heineken with 1,869 pints guzzled, while Cork Dry Gin was the spirit of choice with 1,620 measures sold.
Wine was another big seller, with the own brand ‘Oireachtas’ — at €6.40 a glass — selling 4,102 units from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.
Almost €360,000 [€359,497.89] was spent by the bar’s customers last year, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Like all licensed premises, the Dail’s bars — namely, the Members Bar and Visitors Bar — had been off limits during the pandemic due to the strict restrictions on the hospitality sector.
But the latest figures confirm the bar trade — at Leinster House, at least — has boomed in the post-Covid era.
The figures also confirm that tea and Americanos were the next most popular drinks sold after Guinness.
In 2023 some 9,803 cups of tea were served, while caffeine-loving patrons knocked back 7,261 large Americanos.
It was recently revealed politicians in the Members Bar racked up a €70,775,56 debt for unpaid drink and food bills last year.
Meanwhile, the Dail heard Taoiseach Micheal Martin is “drinking too much green tea and it’s going to your head”, after a debate on the proposed ban on the sale of turf took a bizarre twist.
Eamon Ryan and Micheal Martin moved to turn down the heat on the turf war that has rocked the Coalition with Fine Gael and Green Party TDs openly feuding on the issue.
Green Party leader Ryan had proposed to ban the commercial sale of turf across the country from September in a bid to lower air pollution which he says is resulting in more than 1,000 deaths a year in Ireland.
However, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael TDs are adamantly against the move with tens of thousands of homes across the country still burning turf to heat their homes.
Minister Ryan met with Fine Gael and Fianna Fail TDs and Senators today in a bid to allay their fears about the proposed ban.
Speaking before the meeting, Fine Gael’s Joe Carey said the proposed date for the ban to start in September is “absolutely premature” as he confessed that the Government parties are “at loggerheads” on the issue.
He said: “We have an issue with this. The backbenchers have an issue particularly in rural Ireland along the west coast and midlands area.
“We can’t just lie down and let something happen that we’re absolutely opposed to. You’re hitting people here on modest incomes, who have no alternatives and it is being rushed.”
Shortly afterwards, Green TD Neasa Hourigan took a shot back at Fine Gael when she accused the party of refusing to act on air pollution for ten years as she called for the ban to be implemented with targeted supports to help households move away from turf.
She said: “In the next few months we’re going to have to see some targeted measures for lower income households, that’s the way to deal with the removal of fossil fuels not to continue to poison people and their children by burning turf.
“I think we should go ahead and I think for rural communities to lift their voice and say that is one thing but for Fine Gael politicians who refused to act for ten years is not acceptable.”