Official travel in the agencies under the remit of my Department is appraised and monitored by each agency to ensure that travel is restricted to necessary journeys only. Wherever feasible, staff of the agencies use public transport when travelling on official business. Video conference and conference call facilities are regularly utilised to avoid the need for official travel, where appropriate. The Department and its agencies operate a travel pass scheme encouraging staff members to use public transport in both working and leisure hours, thus assisting in reducing the level of carbon emissions.
Carbon emissions caused by official travel must be balanced against the considerable benefits accruing to Ireland from business transacted on those journeys in terms of promoting trade, attracting inward investment and influencing international policy.
The recently published National Climate Change Strategy 2007-2012 sets out measures to be adopted by the civil and public sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These include a requirement that each public sector body adopt greenhouse gas reduction targets and measure and report progress on achieving these targets in their annual reports.