I propose to take Questions Nos. 166 and 167 together.
My Department administers a very diverse, complex and technical brief across critical and strategic sectors of the Irish economy. While it has a total complement of around 396 full time equivalent staff of whom a number are technical personnel, the technical, commercial, legal complexity and evolving nature of sectors with which the Department deals requires access to external professional expertise to assist in discharging its functions. In procuring these specialised services, my Department always seeks to ensure value for money and that these services contribute to project delivery and informed, robust and evidence based policy making.
Details of external consultants reports commissioned and also consultants contracted by my Department in 2018 from the firms in question are set out in the tables below.
Name of firm report was commissioned from in 2018
|
Name of Report
|
Cost of Report (inc VAT)
|
Ernst & Young
|
Financial Capacity Assessment of Petroleum Licence Applicant A – AMLR 2015 Conversions
|
€7,380
|
Ernst & Young
|
Financial Capacity Assessment of Petroleum Licence Applicant B – AMLR 2015 Conversions
|
€7,380
|
Ernst & Young
|
Financial Capacity Assessment of Petroleum Licence Applicant C – AMLR 2015 Conversions
|
€7,380
|
Total
|
|
€22,140
|
Name of firm consultant was contracted from in 2018
|
Name of project
|
Cost of consultant (inc VAT)
|
Deloitte & Touche
|
National Broadband Plan
|
€52,767
|
PwC
|
National Broadband Plan
|
€467,508
|
KPMG
|
National Broadband Plan
|
€4,296,098
|
Ernst & Young (EY)
|
Provision of commercial, financial and governance advice for the award of a concession agreement to operate, manage and maintain the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC)
|
Nil cost to date as work is on-going. (Total cost of €226,594 inc VAT to be paid in 2019).
|