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Records ob­tained un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­veal that the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter host­ed a $160,135 Christ­mas staff event at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, even as min­istries were asked to lim­it fes­tive spend­ing. A sec­ond Christ­mas event, de­scribed as a “sup­per”, how­ev­er, was fi­nanced from the pro­ceeds of a pri­or tick­et­ed din­ner, at no cost to the State.

The FOIA re­quest sub­mit­ted to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on Jan­u­ary 9, 2026, showed that be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2025 and the date the re­quest was processed, the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre host­ed a se­ries of events, in­clud­ing the End of Year Staff Ap­pre­ci­a­tion Christ­mas Event and the Prime Min­is­ter’s Christ­mas Sup­per.

The re­quest sought records list­ing all events held at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre dur­ing this pe­ri­od, fi­nan­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion in­clud­ing in­voic­es, pur­chase or­ders, con­tracts, quo­ta­tions and pay­ment records for cater­ing, en­ter­tain­ment, dé­cor, au­dio-vi­su­al and equip­ment rentals, se­cu­ri­ty and staff sup­port, as well as de­tails of pay­ments made, out­stand­ing bal­ances and names of per­sons or or­gan­i­sa­tions paid.