Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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551. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the associated costs to his Department in terms of landscaping for locations (details supplied), for each of the years from 2013 to 2016, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5985/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Costs of landscaping at DAFM laboratories, 2013-2016.

My Department’s Central Laboratory Complex and one of my Department’s larger office buildings are located at Backweston, near Celbridge in Co. Kildare on a site of approximately 91 acres. The Backweston site is currently shared with the State Laboratory (operated by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform) and plans are currently being developed by the Office of Public Works (OPW) to relocate Forensic Science Ireland (operated by the Department of Justice) to this national campus over the next few years.  In addition, the Backweston campus frequently hosts national and international conferences and visiting trade delegations. OPW have overall responsibility for the maintenance of the site on behalf of the State and have procured a private commercial company to provide facilities management services including site security, landscaping, the operation of a shared services facility (lecture theatre, meeting rooms, catering), buildings maintenance and repairs and cleaning services. The facilities management company outsource landscaping of the Backweston site to another private company – the fees paid to this company are the figures provided in the table for Backweston.

The other locations that are referred to (with exception of Cork), are Regional Veterinary Laboratories located on approximately 1-2 acres of land of which a portion (at most 0.5 acres) is regularly mowed, with some ancillary strimming and weed control. In the case of Cork Regional Veterinary Laboratory, this is located with another Department Laboratory building on a site of approximately 8 acres adjacent to the Model Farm Road and of which only a relatively small proportion (less than one acre) is maintained as a regularly mowed lawn, with some ancillary strimming and weed control.

*Costs for Backweston are apportioned between the State Laboratories, DAFM Administration Building and Laboratories Building. The costs tabled above relate to the DAFM Laboratories portion.