More than €30 million was paid last year to public servants in car mileage expenses and to reimburse staff for rail and bus fares, according to new figures.
Top of the departmental league for mileage expenses was the Department of Justice, where the bill last year was €10.7 million. The Garda accounted for €7.2 million, the courts €1.3 million and the Prison Service €1.2 million.
In the Department of Agriculture, civil servants claimed €9.9 million in expenses for 11.2 million miles travelled by car. The department's bus and rail ticket bill was €64,087.
Social Welfare Minister Seamus Brennan said his staff's bill was high because of the "dispersed nature" of the services, and the fact that there was a "considerable level of investigative work" carried out.
The various travel allowances are not recorded separately in his department so the overall bill of €2.1 million covered car mileage, bus and train fares and "miscellaneous costs".
Travel costs of the Defence Forces pushed up the car mileage bill for the Department of Defence to €2.5 million.
Environment Minister Dick Roche said his staff were paid €1.4 million for 1.7 million miles travelled in their cars.
Bus and rail expenses for environment staff were €66,352. Mr Roche said 241 of them bought annual bus and rail passes allowing them to pay in a "tax-efficient manner approved by the Revenue Commissioners".
Staff in the Department of the Taoiseach received €88,660 for car mileage, €3,871 for rail travel and €2,699 for bus tickets. Almost half the department's bill was car mileage for delegates to the National Forum on Europe, the Forum on Peace and Reconciliation and for the Information Society Commission staff.
Tánaiste Mary Harney's staff in the Health Department are still collating their travel bill.
Staff in the Department of Transport were paid €682,000 in car mileage expenses, of which €503,000 related to driver-testing costs. The bus and rail ticket bill was €4,350. Education's travel bill was €1.4 million, while Foreign Affairs reimbursed €302,262 for car mileage and €120,624 for rail and bus tickets to cover expenses both at the St Stephen's Green headquarters and the 67 missions abroad.
Green Party spokesman on the environment Ciarán Cuffe last night said he was "flabbergasted" by the size of the bill. He called for a minister to be made responsible for an efficiency audit of all State travel expenses. " I think we need to take stock and find some way of reducing the overall mileage. In these days of better communications with e-mail and so on, I think we should be looking at how we can cut down on travel and do a lot more of our work over the phone or electronically."