Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 25: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the extent and total cost of the use of couriers in his Department in each of the past five years; the extent to which such services were provided by An Post during this period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20032/05]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 201: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the extent and total cost of the use of couriers in his Department in each of the past five years; the extent to which such services were provided by An Post during this period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20332/05]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 243: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the total expenditure incurred by his Department in respect of courier or packaging services in each of the past five years; if services available through An Post were used; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20383/05]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 25, 201 and 243 together.

Courier services have been used by my Department on a regular basis for the past five years. An Post parcel service is used on an almost daily basis and other courier services are used as required.

The amounts paid for the period 2002 to date are as follows:

The information for 2000 and 2001 is not sufficiently disaggregated to identify courier expenditure for those years and the cost in terms of staff resources in manually interrogating the records for those years to identify such expenditure could not be justified.

The above expenditure was incurred by the central services division of my Department but additional courier expenditure may have arisen in other administration budget subhead areas and in programme areas. It was not possible to assimilate this information within the time available.

The relatively high level of courier services procured from An Post parcel service reflects the dispersed regional spread of departmental offices and most notably the location of the Department's accounts unit in Castlebar.