Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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179. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the funding allocated to the Citizens Information Board to defray the cost of consultancy for each of the past five years; and the detail of each of the consultancy reports. [17216/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Citizens Information Board (CIB) under the aegis of my Department is responsible for supporting the provision of information, advice (including money advice and budgeting) and advocacy on a wide range of public and social services. It provides some services directly to the public and directly funds and supports an extensive range of services through its delivery partners including the network of 42 local Citizens Information Centres (CIC’s) 51 local Money Advice and Budgeting Service ( MABS), MABS National Development, National Traveller MABS, Citizens Information Phone Services, Sign Language Interpreting Services and the National Advocacy Service.

The Citizens Information Board is allocated an annual budget from which it funds all of its services and is responsible for ensuring that appropriate governance arrangements are in place in relation to the expenditure of these public funds. The allocation to CIB for 2017 is some €54 million.

Expenditure by the Board on consultancy over the past five years is set out in the following table.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.