THE Department of Foreign Affairs has spent a staggering €180m in just three years on the administration of Ireland's embassies and consulates abroad, new figures reveal.

The administrative cost of running the government's 75 overseas missions came to over €61.5m in 2007, €62m in 2008 and over €57m last year, according to information released by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The huge bill does not include the €74m spent by the department on the generous salaries paid over the last three years to the 386 Irish diplomatic staff based in foreign missions.

Nor does it include the tens of millions of euros spent by the government in recent years on lavish refurbishments at embassies and the private residences of Ireland's ambassadors.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said the €180m administrative costs included rental payments on embassy and consular offices, rental for the accommodation of diplomatic staff and the expenses associated with running these buildings, such as electricity and heating.

Salaries for locally employed staff, as well as the considerable expense allow­ances given to diplomats are also included in the administrative costs, according to the department.

The embassy with the highest administrative costs during the three-year period was London at €14.3m. The embassy in London employs a total of 52 Irish civil servants and 11 local staff.

Although there is only one embassy to the US government in America, which is located in Washington DC, there are a further three consulates based in Boston, Chicago and New York. The Irish government also operates another separate embassy to the UN in New York.

The administrative costs for the embassy in Washington DC and the three consulates in the US came to €12.3m in total over the three-year period, while the cost of running the embassy to the UN amounted to a further €6.6m.

A spokesman for the department said the government plans to open two more consulates in Houston and Atlanta.

Expenditure on the embassy to the EU in Brussels has amounted to almost €11m for the last three years. It employs 82 civil servants.

The complement of staff at the EU embassy includes 42 civil servants from the Department of Foreign Affairs, civil servants from all other government departments, as well members of the defence forces and staff from the office of the Attorney General.

The figures were contained in a reply by foreign affairs minister Micheál Martin to a parliamentary question asked by Fine Gael Mayo TD John O'Mahony.

The minister pointed out that the operating costs for the UN embassy in New York in 2008 reflected rental costs paid in advance for 2009, which he said achieved "significant savings".