Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent)
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To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will outline in tabular form the total cost of all conferences and seminars attended by his Department in 2012; the purpose of each conference/seminar; the location; the number of delegates that attended from his Department/agencies or otherwise that were represented; the total cost of each conference/seminar; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5639/13]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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There are strict procedures governing the approval of attendance at seminars/conferences by staff of my Department. These include that the topic of the event must be directly relevant to the officer's official duties and the numbers attending must be kept to a minimum. Prior approval of attendance must be given by the officer's Principal Officer (or higher) and by the Department's Learning & Development Unit.

In relation to attendance by staff of my Department, the details requested by the Deputy are given below. The title of the conference/seminar in each case indicates its purpose. I have referred this question to all State Agencies under the aegis of my Department for direct reply to the Deputy.

Seminars/Conferences attended by staff of DJEI in 2012

The following conferences/seminar was attended by LRC as follows:

Staff members attended the conferences for the purposes of information gathering and to keep abreast of developments in the industrial relations/mediation areas.