David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

They had further advances to spend €4,000 in one case. Those engaged in the proposed Connacht-Ulster alliance spent €5,000 and those engaged in the proposed merger of Waterford IT and IT Carlow spent just short of €100,000, but more than €571,000 has been spent on the proposed Munster merger. The fees are also striking when we consider what the smaller companies charge as against what the larger companies charge. The figure for Deloitte is €190,000, Arthur Cox is listed a number of times and the figure for PricewaterhouseCoopers is €187,000. What exactly were those companies employed to do? What were they examining? We can return to this issue in terms of our work programme later. I have an issue with the continuous outsourcing of responsibility in terms of management and consultancy in the third level sector to these agencies. Leaving that aside, more than €570,000 has been spent on the proposed Munster merger and a fraction of that cost has been spent on the other proposed mergers which are involved in the same process. Why is that the case?