Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 May 2023
231. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the annual value of EAP contracts in 2022 by Department; the successful external applicant and the value of each contract, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23925/23]
View answerThe majority of public investment projects are delivered on budget and on time and there is a high level of professionalism across the sectors. However, noting the higher risk profile of larger projects, my Department introduced additional procedures in November 2021 in order to improve project out-turns, avoid cost overruns and avoid delays to project delivery.
Responding to this need, DPENDPDR put in place an External Assurance Process (EAP) to provide independent scrutiny for major public capital projects (for projects which cost in excess of €100m when introduced, increased to €200m as of March 2023). This involves independent expert reviews at the Preliminary Business Case (approval in principle) stage of the project lifecycle.
The purpose of the EAP is to improve value for money and support funding departments and Government with expert insight relating to project risks, delivery feasibility, and robustness of costings, governance and procurement. Funding departments can avail of external assurance services and independent expertise through a framework of qualified service providers which has been established by this Department.
The application of the external review process is the responsibility of approving authorities, the spending Departments in the main, and their Accounting Officers in order to rigorously assess business cases that have been issued to them from their Sponsoring Agencies. The responsibility is on approving authorities to procure for the external review from a framework of experts and to ensure the feedback from the review is reflected in any updated business case.
Therefore, the information requested by the Deputy is a matter for the Departments who procured the External Reviews. To date, this applies to the following Departments:
• Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage
• Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science
• Department of Health
• Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media
