Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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479. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the amount his Department has spent on consultants since March 2011; and the specific projects they were engaged to report upon. [1786/14]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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My Department’s expenditure on consultancy services and value for money and policy reviews was €3.606m for the period March 2011 to date. In procuring these specialised services, my Department always seeks to ensure value for money and the keeping of expenditure to the minimum necessary. The attached table outlines the projects which incurred consultancy expenditure.

Given the technical complexity of the sectors which my Department oversees and, in some instances regulates, there is a requirement to procure specialised services to address specific issues as they arise. The Department therefore also necessarily incurs expenditure on outsourced services as part of programme expenditure, an element of which is consultancy in nature. I will forward the figure for the consultancy element to the Deputy, when it is disaggregated from the larger programme spends.