Vol. 403 No. 6
35 Mr. Garland asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs , in view of his reply to Parliamentary Question No. 63 of 31 October 1990 regarding the Irish Presidency of the EC, if he will give a more detailed breakdown of (a) travel expenses of £2,382,758 and (b) entertainment costs of £2,214,166.
In my reply to parliamentary question Number 63 of 31 October 1990, I explained that it would not be practicable to give exact details of Presidency-related costs, because of the multiplicity of expenditure headings, the number of Departments involved and the difficulty in many cases of isolating Presidency costs from the normal running costs of Departments. The information provided in that reply was the result of extensive research in the several Departments concerned and the amount of extra work that would be involved in attempting to provide a more detailed breakdown of expenditure would not be justified.
