President George Bush's 18-hour visit to Dromoland Castle last June cost more than €4 million in overtime for 3,500 gardaí, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr McDowell, has said.
Replying to the Labour TD, Mr Joe Costello, the Minister said the full security bill for protecting Mr Bush during the US-EU summit in Co Clare now stands at over €8 million, and some bills are still outstanding.
In all 3,500 gardaí - one third of the force - who were moved to Dromoland from stations all over the State used up 169,021 hours of overtime before and after the brief visit.
Describing the new figures as "astonishing", Mr Costello said the €25-an-hour overtime bill spent could have paid the salaries for 200 gardaí for a year.
Any international political leader coming to the Republic of Ireland had the right to expect that "all appropriate action is taken to ensure his or her security", the Dublin Central TD went on.
"However, crime-harassed communities, which are being starved of Garda resources, will be astonished to find that the Government had no difficulty in coming up with apparently limitless Garda resources for the visit.
"I think the Irish taxpayer is entitled to ask if we got value for the huge expenditure involved in what appeared to be basically a pre-election photo-opportunity for President Bush."
In his Dáil reply to Mr Costello, the Minister said: "A small number of claims and other miscellaneous charges remain outstanding, so it is not possible to provide a full and final cost."
During the visit gardaí closed off a 10km section of the main Limerick-Galway road from Friday evening until Saturday afternoon after Mr Bush had left.
Other officers mounted road blocks on numerous small roads in the area, allowing access only to local vehicles that had received prior security clearance.
Up to 1,000 members of the Garda crowd control unit, who are known within the force as the riot squad, were also on alert in the area, fully equipped with protective clothing, shields and truncheons.
Meanwhile, two water cannon borrowed from the Police Service of Northern Ireland were also in place at Shannon Airport, as were armed gardaí, who also manned positions around Dromoland Castle.
Two thousand soldiers were on duty, equipped with more than 20 armoured personnel carriers, and Scorpion tanks, dug into positions around the airport and Dromoland Castle, along with bomb disposal experts and a chemical decontamination unit.
