Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sure the Taoiseach is familiar with Accenture, the IT management company. It has positioned itself as one of the top earners of external contracts from Government Departments and State agencies. Various Departments are availing of its services, but its number one contract in 2016 was with An Garda Síochána, which paid Accenture €26.5 million, and as astonishingly high as that figure is, it gets worse.

An audit by the Garda internal audit section into Garda information and communications technology, ICT, payments for 2016 and completed in August 2017, which RTÉ's John Burke got following a freedom of information request, found serious problems with the Garda contract with Accenture. The aim of the audit was to examine the payments process in ICT, specifically the authorisation of payments and the contractual position with vendors, and to obtain assurances that projects are monitored. The audit also sought to obtain assurances that control over expenditure on ICT is sufficiently robust to satisfy the European Commission. The audit found no assurances that public procurement requirements were being complied with, and this represented a high risk. The Garda contract with Accenture, which was provided to the audit, is dated August 2009. The audit stated that as this contract was not renewed since 2009, it was not satisfied that An Garda Síochána complied with procurement obligations.The audit notes that Accenture staff are the only external IT contractors who do not record their attendance and hours on an electronic clocking system. The audit also found that controls over payments are generally effective, but not in the case of Accenture. Not only are there problems with the contract and the staff, the audit also found that An Garda Síochána had been paying Accenture in advance, before the work is done, and that this was highly unusual in An Garda Síochána and, as the Taoiseach will know, it is pretty unusual in most businesses.

Neither did any of the new arrangements which had been made with Accenture since 2009 go out to tender. Accenture is the very same firm which developed the now infamous PULSE system, which the head of the Garda Inspectorate, Robert Olsen, said was not fit for purpose, was 1990s technology and was time to be retired. That was more than two years ago.

Who in An Garda Síochána has the authority to make these payment decisions?Does pre-paying a multinational company millions of euro on a contract nine years out of date with staff who do not even clock in properly sound like value for money? Someone needs to be held to account for this. How much does the Department of Justice and Equality know about what is going on? I put in a parliamentary question on 1 June 2017 about all Garda contracts with Accenture. I got the information in a reply on 19 December, more than six months later. Is the Department in the dark about what is going on? Is this the norm for Accenture? It has contracts with numerous Departments and agencies. Is this happening in other areas as well?

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