Updated / Wednesday, 3 Jun 2026 12:40
The inside of Ireland’s new €53m Government jet has been fitted out with cream coloured executive-style seating, polished wood panelling, cabin tables, and sofa-style seating.
New pictures show the interior of the Falcon 6X aircraft as it neared completion at a Dassault Aviation facility in the US last year.
The images show a high-end cabin including a galley area, individual passenger seats, fold-out tables, a divan-style sofa, and private washroom facilities.
A status report from Dassault Aviation said the interior installation was around 90% complete by mid-September.
It said the final upholstery of the seats had been completed and that the seats had been fitted in the aircraft.
The work took place at Dassault FalconJet in Little Rock, Arkansas, according to records released under Freedom of Information.
Dassault Aviation was responsible for the design of the interior, while Dassault FalconJet in the US handled the installation.
The Defence Forces said they did not have a breakdown of the aircraft’s overall price showing the separate cost of the base aircraft, interior fit-out, or completion works.
No extra changes or bespoke elements were sought for the jet, the Defence Forces confirmed.
“There were no additional modifications to the interior design fit-out,” an information note said.
“As the aircraft was on the production line at the time of procurement, any alterations to the specification would have caused significant delays to the project delivery,” the note added.
The Defence Forces said this would have conflicted with the objective of acquiring the aircraft before the end of 2025.
They said there was no high-level correspondence between them and the Department of Defence around the interior or configuration.
“The project team was a mix of Air Corps and [Department] staff. The Air Corps members did not correspond directly with any [Department] official outside of the project team,” the note said.
The aircraft has already been used on at least ten occasions for ministerial transport since March.
Six of the ten missions listed online by the Department of Defence were for the Taoiseach, two for the Minister for Defence, one for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and one for the Minister for Communications.
The longest trip was the St Patrick’s Day excursion to Philadelphia and Washington DC in March for Micheál Martin and his delegation with 1,010 minutes – or roughly 17 hours – of flying time.
The €53m jet has also travelled to Madrid, Helsinki, Berlin and Athens.
The Department of Defence said it had not yet calculated an average hourly operating cost for the aircraft.
In response to a separate FOI request, it said this was done based on a “full year of operational service.”
“This is considered standard for professional financial reporting to ensure the metric accurately reflects a complete cycle of maintenance, fuel usage, and operational mission profiles,” a decision explained.
Reporting by Ken Foxe
