Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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Question 119: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will provide a breakdown of the costs of office holder car transport over the past 12 months; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23400/12]

Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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Question 120: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will provide the total cost of office holder car transport in 2010, separately the total for 2009, the same figure for car transport costs for Ministers of State, the total cost of car transport, including Ministerial and office holder transport, since March 2011; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23401/12]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 119 and 120 together.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Government introduced a number of changes for the provision of Office Holder transport during 2011. One of the consequences of that decision was that the transport arrangements in place for Ministers of State became applicable to Government Ministers, subject to very limited exceptions on security grounds. In addition, it was decided that former Presidents and Taoisigh would only be supplied with official transport for important State occasions. The revised transport arrangements came into operation for Government Ministers on 1st May 2011 and for former Office Holders on 16th June 2011.

The Garda Commissioner is the Accounting Officer for the Garda Vote. In that context, I am informed by the Garda authorities that records in relation to the cost of providing Office Holder transport have not been maintained in a manner which would allow for the identification of costs associated with individual Office Holders. However, the Garda authorities have indicated that total expenditure on the provision of Office Holder transport for the periods referred to by the Deputy was as set out in the following table:

With regard to the table, some of the costs arising in 2011 included costs associated with the service prior to and after the new transport arrangements had been fully introduced.

The Garda authorities do not have details of Ministerial transport costs which are not charged to the Garda Vote. However, significant savings have been achieved within the Vote and I also understand that, overall, the revised arrangements have considerably reduced the level of expenditure on Ministerial transport.