Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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513. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide in tabular form a list of all professional fees, including but not limited to legal, consultancy, IT related, advisory, advertising and accountancy; the company name and the amount invoiced between 1 June 2012 and 31 May 2013. [34551/13]

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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515. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide the annual saving to the Exchequer of a 20% reduction to all professional fees, including but not limited to legal, consultancy, IT related, advisory, advertising and accountancy; the company name and the amount invoiced between 1 June 2012 and 31 May 2013. [34583/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 513 and 515 together.

The details of professional fees paid my Department for the period 1 June 2012 and 31 May 2013 are set out in the following table.

The potential savings to the Department by reducing these fees by 20% would be €1,263,940. The Legal category above may include payments in respect of legal settlements with third parties.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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514. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide in tabular form a breakdown of all third level courses, training programmes and courses and accompanying cost for the 2012-2013 academic year 1 September 2012 to 30 June 2013 provided for employees of her Department. [34567/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The Department is committed under its Learning and Development Strategy to provide opportunities for the education and development of its staff. The Department recognises that investment in learning leads to improved performance and productivity, increased employee engagement and better customer service.

Business areas offer development opportunities to staff through internal training, courses delivered externally or the Refund of Fees scheme.

From 1 September 2012 to 30 June 2013, staff attended 96 different external course types at a cost of €300,387.

The Department also operates the Refund of Fees scheme to encourage staff to pursue higher educational achievement outside of normal business hours. The scheme operates within the parameters of Department of Finance Circular 23/07. In the 2012/2013 academic year, 97 staff will participate in the scheme resulting in a total cost, when all fees are refunded, of €233,947.

The full list of courses under both external training and the Refund of Fees scheme for the period in question are listed in Tables 1 and 2 below.

Table 1

External Courses: 1 September to 30 June 2013

Table 2

Refund of Fees: Academic year 2012/2013