James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I wish Deputy Naughton well in her role as Chairman. I look forward to working on this committee. I welcome the Minister and acknowledge his remarks on working with all groups and parties in the House. That has been my experience of the Minister to date.

I have a specific question on subhead A3, the roll out of the national broadband. The total for subhead A3 is €16.2 million and the single largest line item of expenditure is the €10 million allocation for the national broadband plan. A sum of €10 million is a nice round figure but I wonder how it will be spent. In earlier remarks, the Minister alluded to the fact that some of it will be spent on consultancy and external expertise. Given the highly technical nature of the roll-out plan, external expertise in engineering, technology and IT will be required. The nature of consultancy projects are intangible. It can be hard to quantify the deliverables and outputs. My query relates to the tracking to be put in place on the engagement with external consultants and the kind of reporting structure that will be in place. There is a project management adage - an IT project that NASA was running was one year overdue. One of the programme managers asked how a project could be delivered one year late, the answer was one day at a time.

It is very apt. It is a reminder to all of us involved in governance and oversight to ensure at the outset before the expenditure is approved that the checks and balances are in place. It is in a consultant's interest to perpetuate the job and it is in the client's interest to achieve the deliverable in the shortest timeframe. My question for the Minister and his officials is what kind of checks and balances are in place around the consultancy spend to ensure that the State is getting value for money and that the deliverables are produced and delivered in a timely fashion. The briefing note refers to the intention to award the contract in 2017. This is welcome but we need to ensure we are on track.