John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 588: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the capital projects undertaken by Waterford County Council in respect of which they were required by his Department to engage external consultants in each of the years 2002 to 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39002/06]

John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 589: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the amount of capital grants or revenue funding granted to Waterford County Council in respect of the cost of external consultants in each of the years 2002 to 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39003/06]

John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 590: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the capital projects undertaken by Waterford City Council in respect of which they were required by his Department to engage external consultants in each of the years 2002 to 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39004/06]

John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 591: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the amount of capital grants or revenue funding granted to Waterford City Council that was in respect of the cost of external consultants in each of the years 2002 to 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39005/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 588 to 591, inclusive, together.

While it is normal for local authorities to engage consultants for capital schemes funded by my Department, this is not specified by my Department as a necessary requirement. Where applicable, the costs of consultancy services associated with local authority capital projects funded by my Department are included to required levels in the overall approved project costs and the associated expenditure is recouped by my Department. Where design consultants are engaged on water services and local authority housing contracts the average fee is 7.5% inclusive of VAT on the contract sum (exclusive of VAT); the incidence of consultancy fees being incurred on the Non-national roads programme is minimal as most of the design work is undertaken in-house by local authorities. Consultancy costs as a component of the overall project costs are not disaggregated for the purposes of my Department's records and therefore separate financial information is not readily available in my Department in relation to consultancy costs for individual projects.

New arrangements are being introduced in 2007 under which fixed price lump sum consultancy fees will apply to the procurement of external consultants by local authorities.