Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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This is a very long contract. If it was to continue going as it is over its lifetime, it would make it way more expensive.

My understanding is that the Department deals with the administrative side, but the technical side is where we have the serious questions. Providing these services in house may well end up being a better option than employing consultants if the consultants are there in perpetuity. The letter states that since the contract was signed with Analysys Mason, payments of €6.95 million have been made. I think we should ask about the duration of the contracts in each of the three cases, namely, with Analysys Mason, EY and William Fry.

The letter goes on to state that since the contract was signed with William Fry in 2020, payments of €1.32 million have been made in respect of legal advisory services. Would it be possible for those legal advisory services to be got in house? We should inquire about that. This is all going to be within the same range of expertise. It is not as if it will involve, first, buying a house and then opening a road. It could end up being much better value for money if there were in-house expertise, and we should ask about that.

On the final page of the letter, there is a reference to arrangements being in place for effective knowledge transfer between advisers and the core team to mitigate their reliance on external advisers. I would like some more detail on what the knowledge transfer is and whether that has yet been scoped out. That is the kind of detail we will need. The letter goes on to state the Department's core team has expanded over the past year, with seven posts having been filled in 2021 and a further 14 additional posts in the process of being filled to replace some of the external resources, and that more expertise will be brought in house, which is welcome. It would be useful to get a breakdown by technical grade of the incoming staff in order that we will have some marker to see what changes are taking place.