JOE Biden’s visit to Ireland rocketed the Garda overtime bill to €78.76million for the first five months of this year.
The figure compares to last year’s entire overtime bill of €127.72m.
The security op in place for April’s four-day visit by the US President was one of the biggest ever seen in Ireland.
All specialist Garda units — including the Armed Response Units, Special Detective Unit, Public Order Unit, Garda Dog Unit and others — were involved in the policing operation.
And all Garda leave was cancelled for the duration of the visit.
Separate figures reveal the overtime spend for the first three months of this year totalled €35.24m.
They also confirm that the overtime spend for April and May totals €43.52m — or an average overtime daily spend of €713,442 across the 61 days of those two months.
During the visit, the then Justice Minister Simon Harris said he expected the overtime bill to be “significant”.
But the TD added: “To be honest, those costs will pale in significance with the benefit of the visit.
“The benefit to what I hope is going to continue to embed peace on our island, but also indeed the economic benefit, the tourism benefit, the profile benefit, that a US Presidential visit brings.”
President Biden spent four days in Ireland accompanied by son Hunter and sister Valerie.
During his whistle-stop tour, the leader visited Co Mayo, where he connected with distant cousins.
He also toured the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock and stopped off the North Mayo Heritage and Genealogical Centre’s family history research unit.
EMOTIONAL TRIP
The US leader broke down in tears at Knock Shrine after a chance meeting with the priest who performed the last rites sacrament on his son Beau Biden.
Beau Biden had a promising career as a politician ahead of him when he sadly passed away from brain cancer in 2015.
Fr Frank O’Grady was the priest that performed the last rites on the 46-year-old, whose tragic passing happened while Mr Biden was serving as Barack Obama’s Vice-President.
Biden finished off his time with an open-air speech in Ballina, where he told how the Mayo town is now “part of his soul”, adding: “It meant the world to me and my entire family to be embraced as ‘Mayo Joe,’ son of Ballina.”