A total of 112 people reached 100 years of age last year and received the "centenarian's bounty" of €2,540 each from the President, Mrs McAleese. A further 99 people have hit the century mark this year to date.
The "bounty" to the recipients for the two years has cost the Exchequer €535,940, according to the Minister for Finance, Mr Cowen.
He told Fine Gael's spokesman on disability, Mr David Stanton, that the President's office received a print-out from the Department of Social and Family Affairs at the end of the year for the following year of people who would reach the age of 100.
Mr Cowen said in a written reply that the office depended on relatives, friends and managers of nursing homes to inform it of centenarians who are not in receipt of social welfare.
Tourism minister confident
The Minister for Tourism, Mr O'Donoghue, is confident that the target of increasing the number of visitors to Ireland from 6.1 million a year to 10 million will be reached by 2012.
The industry did not experience the targeted growth of 4 per cent in 2004, but he told the Dáil that "in a year when, internationally, experiences were not great in the industry, it is heartening that our share of the market increased by 2 per cent plus".
Increased access from the Continent and improving access from the US, would "drive the figures upwards" and he welcomed the decision by Ryanair to add nine routes from Shannon.
Answering questions on his plans to restore competitiveness in the tourism industry, Mr O'Donoghue said it was the "function of everybody to tackle the competitiveness issue" and he had repeatedly highlighted the need for the industry to give value for money.