by the Irish News, external<\/a> revealed that more than \u00a3980 was spent on the trip. <\/p>\nIn the face of the criticism, the DUP said on Thursday the invitation was issued “in her capacity as deputy first minister and will be registered in the normal way”.<\/p>\n
Both the deputy first minister and First Minister Michelle O’Neill were invited to Wimbledon, but O’Neill did not take up the invitation. <\/p>\n
The Executive Office (TEO) said O’Neill did attend the All-Ireland Football semi-final between Tyrone and Kerry later in July but there were “no costs” associated with that trip.<\/p>\n
On the deputy first minister’s trip to Wimbledon, the Executive Office said details of gifts and hospitality received by ministers are recorded on the ‘Register of Ministers’ Gifts and Hospitality Received’.<\/p>\n
It previously said that the deputy first minister “flew economy” and that while she was accompanied by her husband, there was “no additional expenditure” incurred by the TEO on his behalf.<\/p>\n
It also said the travel and accommodation costs were “in line with NICS (Northern Ireland Civil Service) police”.<\/p>\n
The Education Authority said “no spend was incurred” by it and the trip was “made in a personal capacity” while Mr Pengelly was on annual leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The criticism began when the deputy first minister and her husband Mr Pengelly were pictured at centre court’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-329144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114995838615804245","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}