Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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157. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the agencies under the remit of his Department; the amount that has been spent on all Covid-19-related consultancy contracts by his Department and agencies under his remit in 2020, 2021 and to date in 2022, in tabular form; the amount paid for each consultant; and the reason for the consultancy. [6035/22]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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In May 2020, my Department worked with the National Public Health Emergency Team on a survey of business readiness for physical changes to the work environment as a result of COVID-19. As part of this, the Department engaged an external consultancy company to carry out online and telephone surveys of businesses. The total cost of these surveys was €26,730.

In 2021, the Department commissioned external consultants to carry out an independent review of the COVID-19 Restart Grant and Restart Grant Plus. This work is ongoing and no payments have been made to date.

There has not been any further expenditure on COVID-19 related consultancy contracts by my Department during the period in question.

Expenditure on external consultancy by the agencies under the remit of my Department is an administrative matter for the agencies themselves and not one in which I have a function. The Department does not routinely collect details of such expenditure by the agencies.