Councillors on two of Dublin's four local authorities have vetoed moves to slash the amount they can spend on foreign "junkets" to an average of €1,000 per person.

Labour Party members of Fingal county council and members of the People before Profit Alliance on Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown county council wanted to introduce new limits on travel expenditure.

Last week a meeting of a Fingal county council procedural committee, which had been asked to examine a Labour party motion seeking the introduction of the new €1,000 limit, opted instead to introduce a much smaller 10% cut.

Labour party councillor Patrick Nulty, who proposed the original motion, said the decision means Fingal councillors will still be entitled to €3,000 each per year, with the possibility of "redistributing" any of their unused allowance to fellow council members.

Among the recent trips sanctioned by Fingal council were attendance at a winter conference in Bermuda and a separate trip to Brazil.

"The rationale which has been given is basically that it is training and education, that they need to be kept up to speed with various policy options," Nulty said. "But this could be done far more efficiently if the council got experts in to brief councillors. They don't need to spend entire weekends in hotels both in Ireland and farther afield. I put on record at the committee meeting that I thought the 10% cut was not enough. We need to be far more frugal and considered in the way we use public money."