Course costs department €1,300 a day

The Department of Health has spent over €30,000 sending four officials to attend an exclusive six-day course on negotiation at one of the world’s most prestigious universities.

The spend of €30,975 for the four officials to attend the executive Oxford Programme on Negotiation at the Said Business School at the university is part of €245,750 the department has spent on education and training for its officials since the start of last year.

It has cost the taxpayer €8,179 — or €1,363 per day — for each department official to attend the six-day residential course this year, that counts BBC news correspondent, Lyse Doucet as one of its speakers who talks on “negotiating in global trouble spots”.

A brochure for the course states participants will be better equipped to develop and use the five skills of negotiation: Information gathering, decision making, innovative thinking, persuasion, and implementation/ enforcement.

The course at the purpose-built Said Business School offers participants “fine dining from an award- winning kitchen, a full accommodation service and sports facilities”.

The brochure states that “the programme structure is a mix of interactive lectures, discussions, case studies, role-play, simulations and informal seminars, all led by world-class academics and practitioners”.

The course runs for one week in July and one week in September each year.

The figures — supplied by Health Minister James Reilly in a written Dáil response to Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams — confirm that two department officials attended the course this year and two last year.

In his Dáil reply, Dr Reilly confirmed that €161,285 was spent on officials attending courses, seminars and conferences in 2011 and €84,465 to date this year.

A breakdown of the figures show the department spent €149,340 on funding officials’ course work in 2011, with a further €11,945 spent on officials attending seminars and conferences.

To date in 2012, about €66,292 has been spent on officials attending courses with €15,483 on officials attending seminars and conferences.

The spend also included two other officials attending a “leadership challenge 2011” course at a cost of €7,300 per person last year.

The information provided by Dr Reilly confirmed that two officials paid an aggregate €800 to attend French evening classes last year.