Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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655. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport 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. [54002/13]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The total number of full time equivalent staff members (FTE)   staff in the Department is 449. The majority of the staff are based in Dublin, while other staff are based in regional locations such as Valentia, Malin Head and Ballyshannon which are not associated with any of the decentralisation programmes.  A total of 101.25 (FTE) are based in decentralised locations. These include Killarney (26.1 FTE), Shannon (62.15 FTE) and Loughrea (13 FTE). It is the policy of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to make use of video conferencing where possible for meetings and all of these locations have such facilities. Where it is necessary for an officer to be present at a meeting it is the policy to use public transport. Private vehicles are allowed in exceptional circumstances.

Data relating to the number of journeys and associated costs are being computed at present. I will arrange to have this sent to the  Deputy.