PSNI Officers and G4 security staff on duty on the Shore Road prior to the G8 summit
THE TOTAL cost of bringing the G8 summit to Fermanagh has been revealed as £80m – and the sum has been criticised by a local MLA, and a member of the local summit protest group.
The summit, which took place on June 17 and 18 at the Lough Erne Resort, doubled the initial expected amount – with the Northern Ireland Executive having to shell out £20m of that bill.
Thousands of additional officers were brought from around the UK, and within Northern Ireland itself, for the summit. The cost of the security fence around the Lough Erne Resort alone was over £4m.
UUP MLA Tom Elliott, said that there has been an ‘increase in projections over what were very large sums of money to begin with’.
He went on: “Given this significant increase in costs many people will be asking if that is the final figure, or indeed if there will be further financial costs and if the £20m that is required from the Northern Ireland Executive will be added to.
”While many people agree that the G8 was a very successful event, an £80 million bill is massive for an event that essentially lasted just over one day.”
Donal O’ Cofaigh, a member of Fermanagh G8 Not Welcome, the group who organised the protest march, was scathing in his appraisal of the costs.
He described as ‘impossible to comprehend’ at a time when ‘cuts to public expenditure are directly causing the closure of local schools…working families are suffering from job losses, benefits cuts and pay freezes’.
He added: “Questions have to be asked about the local politicians who became intoxicated on the whiff of celebrity and power, and who were so deluded that they thought that the council chamber would host the world’s leaders – where do they stand now on this ballooning cost?”
He referred to the potential job creation that could have become a reality through Invest NI had the money spent on the G8 been spent there, ‘all this at a time when Fermanagh’s unemployment rate has trebled and a generation of youth have been forced to emigrate to find work elsewhere’.
To read more.. Subscribe to current edition
Receive quality journalism wherever you are, on any device. Keep up to date from the comfort of your own home with a digital subscription.
Any time | Any place | Anywhere