Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Correct, but I am concerned with the trip in respect of which the Chairman has been unable to give us information. He made an impassioned contribution but during 2008, the only full year in which he was a Minister of State, a parliamentary question on foreign and domestic travel and subsistence claims by individual Ministers or Ministers of State indicates, to the best of my knowledge, that he came out at the top to the best of my knowledge with claims of €54,126.77. I do not have time to go through all the figures but they are available from the Official Report. He was one of four Ministers of State in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and we was the top of the table in that Department, as well as at the top across Government. I acknowledge that he had responsibility for trade and commerce, a brief which involves travel, but so too does the job of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs. Why did he top the league table for travel and subsistence claims in 2008?