Yeah, it’ll do me: Martin receives his brand new high end luxury car that is part of package costing the Irish taxpayer €910,000

Over the past year, gardaí have spent more than €910,000 on purchasing 11 new vehicles for the fleet used to transport the Taoiseach, the President, ministers, and other key officials, reports RTE.

On average, each of the cars — all manufactured by Audi — cost around €83,000, with most of them being plug-in hybrid models, reports RTE.

Four of the newly purchased cars are diesel Audi A6 50 TDI Quattro models, despite their significant environmental emissions.

The majority of the remaining vehicles are plug-in hybrid versions of the same model, increasing the number of eco-friendly cars in the 41-vehicle fleet to 22, reports RTE.

There are still 19 diesel cars in the ministerial fleet, which include both BMWs and Audis, along with a specially modified Ford Transit.

A few of the vehicles have extremely high mileage, with four cars each recording over 300,000km on their odometers, reports RTE.

One example is a BMW 740 bought in 2017, which has covered 358,172km — roughly equivalent to circling the planet about nine times.

The car with the lowest mileage in the fleet is an all-electric Hyundai Ioniq purchased in 2023, with only 22,705km driven, reports RTE.

Several of the new vehicles added last year have already surpassed that, with one diesel Audi already registering nearly 57,000km.

Gardaí also confirmed that in addition to the €913,840 spent on new cars in the last year, two older vehicles were removed from service, reports RTE.

The size of the fleet has expanded significantly since the 2022 move to reinstate garda drivers for all ministers due to safety concerns.

However, gardaí stated that they would not release a detailed breakdown of costs for each individual vehicle, reports RTE.

They explained that disclosing pricing details could place their supplier at a disadvantage in the market.

A decision letter regarding the information request said: “There is a public interest in allowing An Garda Síochána conduct its business with external contractors in a confidential manner and having the ability to hold commercial information in respect of suppliers without undue access by members of the public,” reports RTE.

They also refused to reveal which specific cars had been assigned to which officeholder, reports RTE.