Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I said, IT contractors make up €9.5 million of the total allocation. These are the people who come into the Department on short-term contracts, writing code and designing systems. The actual figure for IT outsourcing is €1.4 million. In other words, the vast bulk of the expenditure relates to the employment of IT experts who work with our teams in the IT department writing and redesigning our systems to deal with the new policy framework that has been agreed through the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy.