Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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629. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will provide in tabular form per annum all external consultant reports commissioned by her Department since march 2011; the costs per report; the company involved; the title of the report; and the publication date. [49253/14]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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As my Department was established on 2 June 2011, the requested information is being provided from that date. My Department commissioned six reports since its establishment and the details requested by the Deputy are set out in the table below. Contracts for the provision of services are not included. One of the reports, "Review of PSO Air Service for the Aran Islands" was published in May 2014. The other reports have not been published. For completeness, I wish to bring to the Deputy's attention that the University of Birmingham was commissioned in 2010 by the then Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, prior to the establishment of my Department, to undertake a review relating to peatlands. The resulting report, Review of Archaeological Survey and Mitigation Policy relating to Bord na Móna Peatlandswas published in June 2013 and the associated costs of €34,337 were met by my Department.

I also wish to point out that my Department also commissions engineering or environmental experts from time to time to provide technical reports on specific issues, as required. While the providers of these services are consultant engineers, environmental consultants or may describe themselves in other such terms, their work is not classified as consultancy services and is not funded from my Department's Administrative Budget.

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