Policing bill for five Garth Brooks concerts at Croke Park was €380,000

The policing bill for the five Garth Brooks concerts last year in Croke Park was €380,000, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Gardaí charge for policing services at large concerts and sporting events, with the amount usually agreed with the commercial organisation running the event beforehand.

Garth Brooks’s five concerts were the most expensive of 2022 – followed by the Malahide Castle Summer Concerts in Dublin – which cost almost €272,000, according to figures released to Newstalk.

Fine Gael Senator Barry Ward told Newstalk it was not right for taxpayers to foot the bill for private events.

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“Where you have a profitmaking event that’s being organised privately and there’s a requirement for a policing presence, it certainly wouldn’t make sense that that policing bill to be footed by the taxpayer or the public purse,” he said.

“So, where someone is making a profit out of an event, they should be factoring in the policing requirement into the cost of running that event.”

A further three events cost just under €255,000 each last year. The first was a series of rock concerts in Dublin’s Marlay Park in June featuring Green Day, Guns and Roses and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

The second was the three-day Longitude Festival at the same venue in July, and the third was the National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co Laois.