I propose to take Questions Nos. 580 and 581 together.
My Department administers a very diverse, complex and technical brief across critical and strategic sectors of the Irish economy. The technical, commercial, legal complexity and evolving nature of sectors with which the Department deals at times 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 costs paid to the specific companies referred to for services provided to my Department in each year from 2015 to date in 2019 are set out in the following table.
Mazers, A&L Goodbody and Davy were not engaged by my Department in the period concerned.
Name of Company
|
Reason for engagement
|
|
|
|
|
Costs incurred each year
|
|
|
2015
|
2016
|
2017
|
2018
|
2019 (to date)
|
KPMG
|
Study of the wider economic costs and benefits of potential extensions of the Irish natural gas network
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
€208,879
|
-
|
KPMG
|
Specialist support - National Broadband Plan
|
€729,831
|
€1,098,615
|
€4,777,775
|
€4,726,924
|
€778,907
|
PWC
|
Specialist support - National Broadband Plan
|
€1,040,440
|
€143,145
|
€759,927
|
€467,508
|
-
|
Deloitte
|
Specialist support - National Broadband Plan
|
-
|
€5,412
|
€16,236
|
€52,767
|
€8,456
|
Arthur Cox
|
Legal Advice on Shell’s Divestment from Corrib Gas Field
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
€124,608
|
€4,142
|
Arthur Cox
|
Legal Fees re Corrib Consent Process
|
€359,376
|
-
|
€39,276
|
€7,334
|
-
|
Deloitte
|
Support on National Cyber Security Strategy
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
€7,804
|