David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

That is my point. Ms Burke is the head of the organisation and oversees a spend of more than €8 million on outside contractors and external service providers. At a strategic level, has the EPA examined whether there might be better value for money in getting in-house expertise to do some of this work in the future? I understand that one-off projects might require very specialist work and it might make more sense to undertake them using the current model. Has the EPA examined this? Ms Burke notes that every organisation, Department or subsection of a Department would say that it wants more staff. The overall spend on external contractors is quite high relative to the EPA's overall spend. Has the agency reviewed the possibility of saying to the Department that providing more money for the EPA to do this work in-house would be more cost-effective?