{"id":514551,"date":"2026-06-23T15:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/514551\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T15:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T15:45:08","slug":"housing-agency-spends-e7000-on-french-riviera-hotel-stays-for-officials-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/514551\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing Agency spends \u20ac7,000 on French Riviera hotel stays for officials \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Housing Agency<\/a> spent more than \u20ac7,000 on accommodation at two hotels for three members of staff to stay for three nights in the French Riviera during a major property conference.<\/p>\n

The agency paid \u20ac5,157 for its chief executive Martin Whelan and another senior official to stay at a hotel in the centre of Cannes in March.<\/p>\n

The bill covered three nights of accommodation for two rooms at an average nightly cost of almost \u20ac860 per room, according to records released under FOI.<\/p>\n

The two senior officials stayed at the four-star Hotel Verlaine, located in a restored 19th-century residence in the city.<\/p>\n

Its website describes the hotel as \u201cjust moments from La Croisette, where your stay unfolds to the sunlit rhythm of the South\u201d. La Croisette is the boulevard and beachfront in Cannes, the resort city known for its international film festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A third person from the Housing Agency also travelled to attend the MIPIM conference in the south of France.<\/p>\n

That room was booked at the Little Palace Hotel, with the bill for three nights coming to \u20ac1,856, the records showed.<\/p>\n

Costs for the trip as a whole came to just over \u20ac14,000, which included rental of a room for a Housing Agency meeting at the Marriott Hotel for \u20ac1,200.<\/p>\n

Badges for the three officials to attend the conference cost \u20ac4,518, while airfares for the attendees came to \u20ac816.<\/p>\n

There were other costs also, including \u20ac191 for airport transfers and other small bills for miscellaneous items.<\/p>\n

The Housing Agency was one of several public bodies in Ireland to participate in the event. <\/p>\n

In April, it was reported that Dublin City Council<\/a> had spent \u20ac11,400 on accommodation at the Royal Antibes hotel in Cannes, with a room rate of around \u20ac592 per night.<\/p>\n

Asked about the trip, a Housing Agency spokesperson said Ireland\u2019s presence at the conference was \u201can important strategic opportunity\u201d at a time when the country faces a critical need to accelerate housing and infrastructure delivery.<\/p>\n

They said: \u201cThe scale of investment required to support this delivery cannot be met through public expenditure alone, and Ireland needs to compete in attracting global capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cMIPIM provided a platform to highlight key Government initiatives designed to improve development viability and activate housing supply, including the Cro\u00ed C\u00f3naithe (Cities) Scheme which is managed and administered by The Housing Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Housing Agency spent more than \u20ac7,000 on accommodation at two hotels for three members of staff to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,13288,69393,61,60],"class_list":["post-514551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dublin-city-council","tag-housing-agency","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}