G8 Summit: “Of course, the event did not come for free…”

As the BBC reports, the Northern Ireland Finance Minister, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, has revised, upwards, his estimate of the cost of the recent G8 Summit in Fermanagh.  Here’s the relevant extract from Hansard

There has been much focus on the cost of the G8 event.  The most important thing is that we successfully delivered a safe and secure event, and, for that, I give my sincere thanks to the PSNI.

Of course, the event did not come for free, and, although the UK Government picked up the majority of the costs, the Executive provided some funding in the June monitoring round.  The estimated G8 policing and security-related costs now stand at approximately £75 million.  However, the UK Government have agreed to cover some £60 million of those costs.  That leaves a balance of £14·5 million, which the Executive agreed to allocate to DOJ.  In addition to the policing and security-related costs, there were some costs registered by Departments, including DETI, DRD and Health.  Those amounted to some £5·1 million and funded road improvements around Enniskillen, a publicity campaign to maximise the economic benefits of the event and pressures on the Ambulance Service and the Fire and Rescue Service.

That now-£19.6million bill is somewhat different from the minister’s pre-summit estimate of the cost to the NI Executive, which was a mere £6million…

Pete Baker