A trip by six TDs to a tourism conference in Rio de Janeiro in May cost the tax-payer almost £23,000, according to official figures for the year 2000.
The figures, for travel expenses incurred by the joint Oireachtas committees, also show a £19,000 bill for a visit to Japan and Korea by four members of the Committee of Public Accounts to study "modern trends in accountability".
The single most costly trip during the year, however, was by five members of the committee on health and children, who incurred expenses of almost £26,000 in attending a conference in New Orleans on tobacco litigation and health.
The five TDs - committee chairman Mr Batt O'Keeffe (FF), Mr Alan Shatter (FG), Ms Beverly Cooper Flynn (FF), Mr Paul Bradford (FG) and Mr Brendan Kenneally (FF) - spent between £2,294 and £3,160 on air fares for the five-day trip, and between £719 and £1,254 on accommodation.
But Mr Shatter said last night the conference had been "very, very useful" in the committee's work on the tobacco industry, which included his own 250page report published in 1999. The cost of the trip would be "minuscule" compared with the benefits to the State if the Government followed the committee's recommendations on the tobacco industry, he added.
Ms Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Labour) said the four-day trip to Rio in May was for a major international conference on tourism. She had replaced the late Mr Michael Ferris in the chair of the committee on tourism, sport and recreation, and was joined at the conference by TDs Mr Michael O'Kennedy (FF), Mr Kenneally, Mr Liam Aylward (FF), Mr Billy Timmins (FG) and Mr Denis Naughten (FG).
Mr Timmins said the trip was "very beneficial from the point of view of seeing the tourism facilities they have in other countries." A visit to the Canadian parliament by a group including TDs Mr Ben Briscoe (FF), Mr Tony Gregory (Ind) and Mr Donal Moynihan, (FF) and Senators Paddy Burke, Willie Farrell and Denis Cregan, cost £21,692.
Trips by the European affairs and foreign affairs committees dominate the list. As chairman of the foreign affairs body, Mr Des O'Malley TD (PD) paid visits to Paris, Brussels, Lisbon, the US and Egypt at a total cost of £9,122.69. Senator Paschal Mooney made 10 trips to Brussels for the European affairs committee, at a cost of £7,267.
One trip by the committee on European Affairs cost £23,797. Mr Bernard Durkan TD (FG), Mr Pat Carey TD (FF), Mr Jack Wall TD (Lab) and Senator Don Lydon paid £4,745 each for air fares to Brazil and Argentina during the World Trade negotiations in late October. The remaining £5,000 comprised accommodation, subsistence allowance, insurance and miscellaneous expenses.
The four CPA members who visited Japan and Korea were TDs Mr Sean Ardagh (FF), Ms Cooper Flynn, Mr Sean Doherty (FF), and Mr Pat Rabbitte (Lab). Mr Ardagh and Mr Rabbitte were also part of a delegation from the committee on enterprise and small business which visited Italy in September. TDs Mr Batt O'Keeffe, Mr Michael Darcy (FG), Mr David Stanton (FG) and Mr Ivor Callely (FF) also made that trip, which cost £10,092.
Fine Gael TD Mr PJ Sheehan incurred expenses of £3,995 for a three-day visit to the inaugural conference of the interparliamentary association for agriculture and fisheries in Korea.