Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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489. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will outline what offices relevant to his Department are located or have been decentralised outside of Dublin; if he will provide the total number of staff in his Department and the number of staff based outside County Dublin as of 2013; the annual cost incurred in 2012 and 2013 respectively for decentralised staff travelling to meetings in Dublin; the number of times staff travelled to individual meetings in Dublin in each of those years; the costs those staff will be reimbursed for; and if his Department has procedures or mechanisms in place such as video conferencing to reduce the cost of travelling for each unit based outside Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53987/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The table sets out the main offices (of which 4 were decentralised) and the 16 regional offices which are relevant to my Department and are located or have been decentralised outside of Dublin:

My Department also has 5 Regional Veterinary Laboratories and two Dairy Science Laboratories located outside of Dublin/Backweston and staff are also headquartered in various food business operations throughout the country.

There are currently 3,345 (3180.46 FTE) staff employed in my Department with 2,800 (2,674.56 FTE) based outside County Dublin.

The following are details of expenses paid to staff for travelling to meetings in Dublin provided on the basis of the destination stated on the relevant expenses claims for the years 2012 and 2013 to-date:

My Department makes extensive use of Video Conferencing (VC) technologies to facilitate meetings between staff that are based in geographically diverse locations. Outside of the Department’s Headquarters (Agriculture House, Dublin 2) there are a total 34 units in the following locations:

In addition, my Department use approximately 20 desktop web cameras which interface with the Department’s VC system into a number of offices.