Senators and TDs used the Oireachtas printing facilities to produce 271,250 personalised calendars and 34,450 bespoke Christmas cards during the past year.
More than a quarter of the calendars were ordered by Tipperary Independent TD Seamus Healy, who used the free printing facility to produce 70,000 of the items in 2018.
Niall Collins and Timmy Dooley, the Fianna Fail deputies who were sacked from the party’s front bench over the recent Dail voting controversy, each ordered 50,000.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was among 33 Oireachtas members who used the printing facility to produce Christmas cards last year, while 26 members printed calendars.
Fine Gael senators Frank Feighan, Paul Coghlan and Joe O’Reilly printed the most festive cards, ordering 3,000 each.
Junior Minister Paul Kehoe was the next-largest consumer of seasonal stationery, ordering 2,500 cards last December.
The cost of the consumables involved in printing the Christmas cards and calendars, such as paper and ink, was just under €10,000. Other costs such as pay for print staff and graphic designers were not available.
Fianna Fail Senator Terry Leyden, used the printing facility to produce 500 calendars last year but decided to pay for them himself.
He said: “I thought they were quite useless, frankly. I didn’t want the bother of having to explain why I got them.”
However, Mr Leyden added he would “neither encourage nor discourage” his colleagues from following his example.
He said: “I never give advice to other Oireachtas members. It’s a matter for themselves… Judge not and thou shall not be judged.”
Defending his use of the taxpayer-funded printing facilities Mr Healy said the calendars featured contact details for important services such as local hospitals, social welfare offices, and emergency services.
He said: “Constituents need to have this information at hand so they can quickly access the services to which they are entitled, sometimes in emergency situations.” He added he has always opposed unnecessary public expenditure and has voted against pay restoration for TDs and waived pay increases in the past two years.
Official guidelines say the print facility must be used only for material relating to parliament and the representation of constituents. It precludes electioneering or campaign messaging.
The cost of Dail printing facilities has been the focus of public debate since it emerged a move to replace existing equipment with a new printer that didn’t fit into the building could cost €2million.
Details of Oireachtas members’ use of the print facilities to produce Christmas cards and calendars were released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Fine Gael TD Kate O’Connell was at the head of the queue for festive greeting cards last year – ordering 500 as early on July 6.
