Department of the Taoiseach, Dublin

The Government has spent in excess of €230 million on consultancy services since it first came into power in 1997 up to the end of November 2006, new figures reveal. The true figure however is much higher, as three of the 15 departments including the biggest spender, the Department of Health, asked to supply consultancy cost information in a written Dáil question did not.

The spending  on consultancy services has been described by Fine Gael TD Jim O'Keeffe as "truly shocking".

"The figures are disturbing and reflect a waste of public money. How many more hospital beds, home helps or gardaí would that €230 million have paid for?"

The three departments who did not supply consultancy costs are health, education and communications, which all said the information was still being compiled.

Former Health Minister Micheál Martin commissioned 145 reports and reviews during his four-year period in that office. The bill for 115 of 145 reports commissioned by the Minister was outlined in a parliamentary answer to Fine Gael TD Seymour Crawford in 2004. It was €30m.

Adding the partial costs for the Martin reports together with the uncosted amount for 30 reports and contracts at the Departments of Health including the Health Services Executive for IT projects that have cost in excess of €100m including €3m on a website that was never launched, and the Department of Communications, likely puts the total spent on consultant reports at €400m or more.  

Those which responded to O'Keeffe gave overall figures for every year. The highest spending was Enterprise, Trade and Employment at €50.4 million, which was the only one to give a breakdown on individual consultant contracts.

One of the highest contracts, €1.5 million, was paid in 2001 to PricewaterhouseCoopers to develop the Business Access to State Information and Services (Basis) website and two reports on cross-departmental studies.

The second-highest spending was the Department of the Environment which spent €44.4 million since 1997. In 2003 it spent €17.1 million on consultancies but this was reduced to €3 million for the first 11 months of this year.

The Department of Social and Family Affairs spent €31.3 million to the end of November 2006.

Minister Séamus Brennan said in a written Dáil reply to Mr O'Keeffe that the bulk of expenditure in the last two years had been on consultancy support for the delivery of strategic information and communications technology and business programmes.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, whose department spent €3.9 million on consultants since the Government came into power, said every effort was made to minimise such expenditure. "However it is necessary to engage consultants in order to avail of their particular expertise or specialities," he said.

Minister for Finance Brian Cowen said his spend of €29.8 million included €8 million in 2000 on services for the euro changeover, including an advertising campaign.

"Don't ministers have permanent consultants in their departments?" O'Keeffe asked. "They are called the Civil Service. It is up to ministers to justify spending all this money on consultants for what would appear to be zero negative benefit."

He said there were numerous examples of consultant-driven decisions that had gone drastically wrong, including PPARS, the health service payroll system, and electronic voting.

Mr O'Keeffe was critical of the three departments which failed to provide the figures. "These are traditionally high-spending departments on consultant services so the figure of €230 million is in fact much higher."