Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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189. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if his Department has re-negotiated external IT consultancy contracts and costs since March 2011; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49189/14]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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IT contracts are normally placed for a fixed period or for a defined piece of work. If further support or development is required when a contract expires, this would normally be the subject of a new tender process. For some IT support costs, such as proprietary software licenses, where open tendering is not always possible, my Department is engaged in an on-going process to ensure that such costs are kept to a minimum. In general, my Department has engaged in an ongoing process of ICT support cost management, through the use of tendering, retiring older technologies, and insourcing supports where specialist skills become available in-house. In the period between 2010 and 2013, this pro-active approach to IT support cost management has given rise to savings which in 2013 amounted to €979,000 on the 2010 figure. Final figures for 2014 are expected to be similar.