Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 330: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the expenditure by her Department on consultants to date in 2008; and if she will compare this to the expenditure on consultants for each of the past five years. [19504/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department's activities require the engagement of a range of consultancy expertise. In the main consultancy expertise is sought to support the Department with a number of strategic multi-annual programmes aimed at enhancing the delivery of the services to the customer e.g. the Service Delivery Modernisation Programme (SDM) and to provide technical consultancies relating to the ongoing development of information technology systems. The Department has spent €2,432,665 on consultancy in 2008. This figure covers the period 01/01/2008 to 30/04/2008 inclusive. The amounts paid by the Department on the engagement of consultants in each year since 2003 are set out in the following table: