Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 351: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the expenditure by her Department on consultants for each of the past six calendar years, including to date in 2008; the breakdown of these figures in order to show the amount and proportion of expenditure on consultants which relates to expenditure on public relations, marketing or advertising consultants; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28389/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department's activities require the engagement of a range of external expertise including consultancy. In the main external expertise is sought to support the Department with a number of strategic multi-annual programmes aimed at enhancing the delivery of the services to customers e.g. the Service Delivery Modernisation Programme (SDM), and to provide specialist assistance relating to the ongoing development of information technology and other service initiatives.

The amounts paid by the Department on the engagement of external expertise in each year since 2002 are set out in the following table:

The figures quoted for 2007 and 2008 include expenditure on consultancy expertise, external service provision and e-government services as shown below:

With the exception of 2002 the Department has not awarded any contracts for public relations projects. In that year, my Department's Press Office engaged the services of consultants for a short period to advise it on a public relations strategy at a cost of €6,534. Consultants were also engaged during 2002 to work on a campaign to promote the Personal Public Services Number (PPSN) at a cost of €308,528.