Colleges clock up travel bills of €11.5m

Cash-strapped universities are clocking up travel bills of more than €11m a year, new figures have revealed.

At a time when third-level bosses have been warning of the impact of government funding cuts on education, Department of Education figures show universities’ bills for travel costs rose from €11.26m in 2010 to over €11.5m last year.

The main offenders were University College Cork (UCC) where costs rose from almost €1.5m in 2010 to €1.8m and Trinity College Dublin (TCD), which had the biggest travel bill, up from €2.5m in 2010 to €2.8m in 2011.