Lord Mayor: 'I won't apologise for reaching out to the people of Dublin, I'm delighted we ran out of beer'
The Lord Mayor of Dublin Nial Ring has defended the amount of alcohol which has been consumed at the Mansion house during his tenure in office.
The Mansion House's annual alcohol budget has been surpassed within just six months of Mr Ring being in office.
The relationship between Guinness and the Mansion House stretches back over more than two centuries. The supply of free beer that been capped at 120 kegs per year.
On Today with Sean O'Rourke on RTÉ Radio 1, Mr Ring was questioned about how much drink he had received given that the two former Lord Mayors who preceded him used 54 kegs and 31 kegs each.
Mr Ring, who is now four times over their amount in the first six months, said: "Well 34 barrels is 3,000 pints - divide it by 26 is 100 pints a week."
"We're actually having a huge number of things in the Mansion House including parties in the evening time and I've had over 16,000 members of the public into the Mansion House and 8,000 at evening events. I want to say thank you to the people of Dublin.
"No one is falling out of the Mansion House, down the steps into Dawson Street in front of the Luas, knocked down by trams."
"We've had three civic receptions, some of them stay on, we have a piano player and they might have a pint," he said.
Diageo have agreed to give extra beer free of charge but when asked how much he has received Mr Ring replied: "I don't honestly know, I think I've enough looking at the kegs down in the basement, I think I've enough until St. Patrick's Day and we'll review it again.
I won't apologise for reaching out to the people of Dublin. I'm delighted we've run out of beer.
It had been reported that almost €20,000 on wine, which is paid for by the taxpayer, had been spent in the past six months.
Responding to this, Mr Ring said: "I'm more a pint man myself, so I wasn't really concentrating on the wine bill.
"We're not going to give them stuff you'd put on your chips, we have to give people coming to the Mansion House they respect they deserve."
According to a Council spokesperson, the spending on wine so far has come to €19,431.
Mr. Ring said: "We have to see how many people came through the house.
"It cost €900m to run the city, it cost €700,000 to run the Christmas lights, everything costs money."
You can listen to the full interview here:
