By a Dave Collins – the Irish Channel
Ireland takes the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU from July to December 2026. On paper, it’s a chance to “chair meetings, set agendas, and keep the legislative machine moving.” In reality, it’s six months of motorcades, marquee venues, and a security operation that will hoover up scarce public money while the country buckles under homelessness, overcrowded prisons, spiralling drug harm, Garda recruitment strain, and an under-strength Defence Forces.
What the Presidency Really Is (and Isn’t)
The job is administrative: chairing Council meetings (not the European Council), brokering compromises, and organising hundreds of gatherings most in Brussels, some at home for show. As Yes, (Prime) Minister once skewered it, the six-month presidency is “hardly enough time for a part-time president to get his feet under the desk.” It’s theatre, not sovereignty.
The Bill: From €42m (+ Security) in 2013 to up to €170m in 2026
When we last hosted in 2013, the Government set a €60m budget excluding security; the eventual out-turn was €42m (again, excluding security). Garda security alone was projected at €10m+. Even the Presidency website cost €335k. That was during austerity.
For 2026, internal estimates now put the price tag between €120m and €170m, with State venues being refurbished and hotels/venues block-booked; about a quarter of meetings are slated to be staged outside Dublin for optics. That’s real money in any year let alone when essential services are stretched.
Perspective: €170m is roughly 79% of the entire Defence capital allocation for 2025 (€215m) the pot meant for radar, subsea surveillance and kit modernisation. A pageant shouldn’t outbid national security.
The Quiet Siphon From Defence
Since the 2022 Commission on the Defence Forces, Government policy is to climb to Level of Ambition 2 by 2028 more people, ships, sensors, and readiness. Yet the Defence Forces are still ~2,000 personnel short of their basic establishment and fighting to stabilise numbers. Every unexpected State bill shrinks “fiscal space” and pushes upgrades and recruitment incentives to the right. You don’t need an accountant to see how a €120 – €170m Presidency competes with radars, patrol days, and retention packages even if the line item sits on a different Vote.
Meanwhile, at Home…
Homelessness: A record 5,000+ children and new all-time highs in emergency accommodation as of August 2025.
Policing: Garda strength is recovering but remains under intense pressure, with recruitment only now inching up after years of attrition; official monthly reports show 14,276 members (June 2025). Communities don’t feel that on the ground.
Prisons: Ireland is running at ~119% of capacity, with women’s prisons worst hit. That is a human-rights and public-safety time bomb.
Drugs: Cocaine treatment cases now dominate Irish drug services; HRB reports cocaine as the main problem drug for ~40% of treatment episodes, with harms sharply up this past decade.
Immigration/Asylum system: Applications surged in 2024; the State ramped up decisions and deportations in 2025, but pressure on accommodation and services remains significant.
Every euro sunk into prestige politics is a euro not available for these crises today.
“Hosting” as Policy Or Just Pageantry?
We’re told that staging ministerials around the country will showcase Ireland. It certainly showcases budgets: venue refits, VIP logistics, and Garda overtime. In 2013 the security tab was forecast €10m+; 2026 will be larger by any common-sense measure. The Presidency’s core work chairing meetings, brokering texts mostly happens in Brussels anyway. The expensive domestic add-ons are optional.
The Long Government and the Short Memory
The current Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael + coalition has governed since 27 June 2020 now in its sixth year. More broadly, Fine Gael has been in office since March 2011, barring a few handovers within coalitions. After 14+ years of stewardship, housing, policing capacity, drugs, prisons and defence readiness are still in crisis. The EU Presidency won’t fix any of them.
What Ministers Will Say (and Why It’s Not Enough)
Claim: “The Presidency lets us set priorities and deliver for Ireland.”
Reality: The Presidency is a rotating chair an “honest broker,” not a ruler. Files move because the machine keeps moving; the presidency doesn’t confer executive EU power. The theatre of hosting does not change that basic fact.
Fact-Box: Ireland’s Last & Next EU Presidencies
2013: Budget €60m (ex-security); out-turn €42m; Garda security €10m+ projected; Presidency website €335k.
2026: Current planning range €120m – €170m; refurbishments and regional events planned; costings still “to be finalised.”
The Call
Ireland is not electing a “President of Europe” for six months. We’re paying to host a rotating secretariat while core public-safety and social-protection systems creak. If Government insists on proceeding at the top end of the €120 – €170m range, then it should publish a line-by-line budget, cap hospitality spend, and commit to a euro-for-euro ring-fence: every Presidency euro must be matched with a euro for Defence upgrades, front-line Garda capacity, addiction treatment, homelessness prevention, and prison relief this year, not after the VIPs fly home. Anything less is pageantry paid for by people who will never get past the rope line.