Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 756: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs the annual cost to his Department of ministerial expenses related to overseas travel engagement; and the event and the expense for same for each of the past ten years. [33084/09]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have detailed as follows in tabular form the annual cost of Ministerial travel, which includes accommodation, commercial flights and travel subsistence incurred for each year from January 2004 to August 2009. The electronic accounting system currently in operation at my Department has only been in place since 2004 and it therefore has only been possible in the time available to obtain comprehensive figures since this date. As the Deputy will appreciate, the role of Minister for Foreign Affairs includes an obligation to undertake a significant amount of official travel overseas.

My Department is fully compliant with the Department of Finance guidelines on foreign travel. My Department also operates its own detailed internal travel guidelines and practises which ensure cost effective travel practises, both in Headquarters and throughout our network of 75 diplomatic missions abroad. The central aim of the Departmental travel policy, which embraces both Ministers and officials, is to minimise official travel costs and to achieve value for money for expenditure necessarily incurred, consistent with the effective discharge of official duties.

* 2004 figures include all travel taken as a result of Ireland's Presidency of the European Union.