Consultants who were paid millions of euros of taxpayers' money to advise the government on the ill-fated bank guarantee scheme have also invoiced for a range of additional "out of pocket expenses" such as taxi fares, flights, photocopying and even a few euro spent on phone calls, according to documents released by the Public Accounts Committee.

Ireland's leading law firm, Arthur Cox, which was paid close to €2m by the National Pension Reserve Fund to advise it on the recapitalisation of AIB and Bank of Ireland, billed for additional expenses including €3.85 for 'telephone calls' and €402.51 for photocopying.

Arthur Cox has also been paid over €6m by the Department of Finance to advise on the bank guarantee, though no details of expense claims attached to this were released.

There has been considerable criticism of the huge amounts of taxpayers' money paid out by the finance minister Brian Lenihan and the agencies under his remit such as the NTMA and the NPRF for advice on the banking crisis.

The total spend to date on consultants' advice since the crisis broke in 2008 is over €30m.

While the Department of Finance asked the consultants to identify any "red flag" issues in the banks, the crisis lumbers on today and last week needed the intervention of the IMF to stop it spreading across the eurozone.

It was always understood that these exorbitant fees included all costs incurred by the consultants. But the invoices sent in to the NTMA and Nama show that every conceivable expense was charged on top of the fees.

The former deputy governor of the Bank of England, Sir Andrew Large, who was paid a fee of £100,000 (€115,000) as a "trusted adviser" on the banks crisis for four months also billed for £2,740 (€3,150) in travel costs between Ireland and England from March to May 2009.

This included £68.71 for a taxi to Heathrow airport, £16.50 for a ticket on the Heathrow Express and £451 for a flight from London to Dublin which included a charge of £138 for altering the morning flight.

In April he paid £78.79 for an Aer Arann flight from Dublin to Cardiff but then paid the larger £90.53 for transport on to his home in Wales.

In all, the invoices released cover over €15m in fees and expenses paid to consultants Merrill Lynch (€7.3m), Rothschild (€4.5m), PwC (€1.5m) Arthur Cox (€2m) and Sir Andrew Large (€115,000).

The documents also show that invoices were paid promptly with one invoice from Merrill Lynch for over €2m written on with the words "pay this".

But the NTMA official dealing with this invoice was obviously not up to speed on his Vat rates.

Another note scribbled on the invoice says "pay 4th schedule service vat @ 21.5%" but the '21.5%' is crossed out and '21%' written in instead.