Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I raised this matter previously. Effectively, we have had to drag these figures from those involved in terms of the costs and the breakdown of them. We asked for them in numerous different ways. The total figure is alarming. More than €571,000 has been spent on a proposed merger and we do not know if it will ever materialise. The other figures are also quite disturbing. Some €344,000 has been spent on the proposed merger of DIT, Tallaght IT and IT Blanchardstown and €49,000 has been spent on Waterford IT and IT Carlow. More than €900,000 has been spent on fees for all these proposed mergers. The fact that we had to drag these figures from those involved is deeply worrying given the level of detail and questioning we went into on this at this committee. We will have to make some commentary on the scale and cost of these fees because of the potential loss to the taxpayer across the board. We need to get some answers on this. I suggest that we will have to follow up with questions based on the figures we have got here today.