Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Over time, the over-reliance on public consultants leads to the loss of expertise and institutional knowledge in the public sector. Recent revelations in Australia have raised the potential for an even more immediate risk, the risk of sharing highly sensitive information with private consultants and then using that information for their own commercial gain. What steps has the Minister taken to ensure that public expenditure on consulting contracts does not expose the State to these risks? Like RTÉ, those in the workforce of PwC or any other consulting firm in Ireland are not responsible for the behaviour of senior executives. Indeed, they may well become the casualties of that type of behaviour.

However, the fact remains that PwC used sensitive information it acquired working with the Australian Government regarding multinational corporation tax. A partner at PwC emailed other PwC offices including PwC Ireland directly to share details of PwC's work on the Australian tax policy. It is shocking that that did not immediately trigger internal disciplinary action. Has the Government sought information from PwC Ireland of who had knowledge of this misuse of confidential information?

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