Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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2148. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to outline the statutory, policy or administrative basis under which his Department publishes its consultancy spending reports (details supplied); whether this publication is required under the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies, or undertaken as a voluntary transparency initiative; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [59596/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Boards requires all state agencies to include a report of any consultancy based expenditure in their annual financial statements and annual reports. There is no statutory requirement to provide this information to the public on their websites. However, some state agencies may voluntarily choose to publish this information.

In addition, DPER Governance Guidance recommend all state bodies to have in a place a dedicated contact email address for any queries or requests for information from Oireachtas members. These details are publicly available and also regularly notified to Deputies on request. For the Deputy's information and ease of reference please find the current list of contact's for my Department's aegis bodies at the link below.

Similarly, there is an obligation on my Department to report on consultancy and service provider expenditure in its annual appropriation accounts. However, there is no statutory requirement to make this information publicly available in any other format. My Department officials have elected to publish consultancy spend on my Department's website on an annual basis, for transparency and to facilitate ready access to this information which is often requested by the public and Oireachtas members.

The detail for 2024 will be uploaded to my Department's website shortly and data in respect of 2025 consultancy expenditure will also be published in the first quarter of 2026.