Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 155: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the amount of expenditure on consultancy by her Department in 2006 and 2007; the numbers of consultants engaged by her Department in those years; the names of the consultancy companies awarded contracts; the steps which have been taken to reduce the expenditure on consultancy and the reliance on consultants by her Department in these years and for the future; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42582/08]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The information requested by the Deputy in so far as my Department is concerned is set out in the table. My Department operates to detailed guidelines when commissioning outside expertise from our consultancy or research budgets. In that regard, the figures provided relate to consultancies as defined in the Department of Finance December 2006 "Guidelines for the Engagement of Consultants and Other External Support by the Civil Service".

The guidelines state, inter alia, that "the requirements for external consultancies and/or research projects should arise only where appropriate skills, knowledge or expertise are not available within the Department, where a particular need arises that cannot be addressed within the resources available, and/or where expertise available in other Government Departments and Offices, e.g., obtaining legal advice from the Chief State Solicitors Office in preference to engaging external consultants, cannot be used". Furthermore, in order to maximise the effectiveness of the consultancy and research budgets, all proposals for funding must present a strong business case to my Department's Management Board for consideration and approval.

In evaluating each business case my Department examines: whether the project is designed to tackle a problem of sufficient importance to the Department relative to the costs, both in terms of financial and staff resources involved; whether the business case has been properly identified, prepared and is convincing, and the links to the Department's Strategy Statement. The Guidelines also set out the specific information required in each application for funding which includes an evaluation of possibilities other than engaging external consultants to carry out the project.