Public relations costs for Government departments amounted to £9.148 million in the past three years.

The Department of the Taoiseach in the past three years spent £2,824,857.20. This included £715,000 for the National Millennium Committee and £1.86 million for the Northern Ireland referendum in 1998.

The information on the costs was released by the various departments, in response to written questions from Fine Gael's spokesman on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Charles Flanagan.

The Department of Foreign Affairs had a PR bill of £2,052,394 for the information campaign about the Amsterdam Treaty.

The Department of Health spent a total of £894,515. The PR bill for the Department of the Environment amounted to £1.425 million

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, employed PR consultants for preparations for the sale of shares in Telecom Eireann and Aer Lingus. PR work for Telecom Eireann amounted to £970,332.20 excluding VAT while an advisory team engaged for the sale of shares in Aer Lingus resulted in PR work valued at £65,000 excluding VAT.

The Department of Defence has spent £23,084 on PR for the Civil Defence. The Minister for Agriculture spent £27,077.79 in the three years. The Department of Finance spent a total of £312,541.63.

The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, said her office did not directly engage any public relations firms in any of the three years. However the Competition Authority and the Director of Consumer Affairs spent a total of £37,422.01.

The Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands spent £65,433. The Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreat ion spent a total of £186,873. The Department of Justice spent £132,803.15 on PR consultancy work. The Department of the Marine spent a total of £13,636.93. The Department of Education had no outside PR costs in 1998 and 1999 but last year spent a total of £15,840.