State packs up €8m bill on courier services

GOVERNMENT departments have spent almost €8 million on courier and packaging services over the last four years, official figures have revealed.

The year-by-year breakdown from each ministerial department shows the biggest spend last year was by the Department of Foreign Affairs, whose minister Dermot Ahern said 96% of the €572,613.34 paid was used on diplomatic bag and freight services to and from 69 overseas missions.

The figures, which show a €1.87m spend in 2004, were supplied by 13 government departments to Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan.

But spending by the Departments of Agriculture and Environment are still being prepared.

The nine departments which gave figures going back to 2001 gave courier firms and An Post more than €7.8m for their services up to the end of last year.

This means that Government departments are spending an average of more than €872,000 each a year on transport and delivery of documents.

During that period, the biggest spender was the Department of Education, which paid over €2.6m.

The bulk of that amount was for the transport of papers for the Junior and Leaving Certificate, which were taken over by the independent State Examinations Commission more than two years ago. Those with the next biggest bills between 2001 and 2004 were:

Foreign Affairs: €2,286,893.62

Social and Family Affairs: €1,430,240

Tourism: €593,203

Defence: €549,142.46

Enterprise, Trade and Employment: €159,679.12

Mr Durkan also asked each department for a breakdown of the level of An Post services included in their spend.

While some were unable to give separate figures, those which did had paid up to half of their courier bills on services provided by An Post last year.