The taxpayer footed a €595 bill to have a photographer follow former Progressive Democrats junior minister Tom Parlon around for a day during an official St Patrick's Day trip to the Hague five years ago.

It has also emerged that the Irish embassy in London paid £834 (€933) on car hire for an embassy official to meet Parlon and his travelling party at Heathrow airport in 2007. The group, including his wife Martha, was en route to and from South Africa to attend St Patrick's Day festivities.

According to a copy of the invoice submitted by Netherlands-based FBF photography to the Irish embassy in the Hague, a photographer was hired for "photography (of Mr Tom Parlon) on Saturday 13 March 2004".

This took place "on various locations," with the cost including "transmission of the photos plus loading of the photos onto the Dutch Press" (sic). The bill of €595, including taxes, is listed as "paid".

Last week, the Sunday Tribune published other details of Parlon's expense claims, which totalled €316,000 in his five years as a junior minister with responsibility for the OPW.

These included a St Patrick's Day trip to Atlanta, Georgia, in 2006 where he, his wife and travelling party ran up a limousine bill of €13,400, including a tip of $2,600 (now around €1,750).

Parlon has repeatedly claimed in media interviews that he did not personally provide the tip and that the arrangements were a matter for the Department of Foreign Affairs.

However, he confirmed to the Sunday Tribune last week that he never queried the cost of the Atlanta limousine and that he never "took issue with it one way or the other".

"I mean I was immersed with lots of issues in terms of policy, in terms of legislation, in terms of doing my business. The micromanagement of that stuff was left [to others]. It wasn't the minister's job to second-guess everything and double-check everything."