Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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174. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of external consultancy contracts entered into by his Department in the past five years, including the original estimated cost, the final cost, and the reasoning for contracting this work rather than using internal resources. [54327/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The amount spent by my Department on external consultancy contracts; which include reports, surveys, and research services commissioned under my Department’s AD7 Consultancy Budget, for the past five years is set out in tabular form below. ICT consultancy reports are also included for completeness.

For each year listed below, consultancy services were procured in cases where there was not the necessary expertise to deliver a project in-house, in cases where an external assessment was deemed essential, or in cases where a project had to be completed within a short time scale, and although the expertise or experience may have be available in-house, performing the task would have involved a prohibitive opportunity cost.

My Department complies with the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation's guidelines for engagements of consultants by the civil service, having regard to public procurement guidelines.