Departmental Reports

Thursday, 30 November 2023

Questions (447)

Carol Nolan

Question:

447. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the total number of consultancy reports commissioned or funded by his Department that have been categorised or designated as not for external publication from 2011 to date; the total costs incurred on commissioning or funding these reports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52992/23]

View answer

Written answers

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine

It is not possible to provide the information requested by the Deputy in the required time. The information is currently being compiled and I will forward it to the Deputy as soon as it is available.

The following deferred reply was received under Standing Order 51

The Minister’s initial reply stated that it was not possible to provide the information requested by the Deputy in the required time, and that he would arrange for a reply to be forwarded directly to you as soon as it was available. The position is now set out per below. This Department seeks to minimise the use of consultants and only engages consultancy firms when particular additional expertise is required for delivery of the services which support the business processes of the Department.

Such services are used in areas where the Department does not have the necessary expertise or internal capacity to deliver the services and where it would not make practical, operational or economic sense to build up this capability within the Department.

A number of these engagements are necessary to satisfy auditing and EU regulatory requirements and where independent evaluation of projects is required. All contracts are negotiated with a view to achieving best value for money and keeping expenditure to a minimum.

The total number of consultancy reports commissioned or funded by my Department, that have been categorised as not for external publication from 2011 to date, along with the costs of same, are set out in tabular form below:

Year	Number of Reports	Cost €
2011	5	522,439
2012	3	533,621
2013	3	480,305
2014	4	480,551
2015	13	835,826
2016	11	729,125
2017	11	965,364
2018	9	728,276
2019	21	1,340,640
2020	28	1,532,125
2021	26	1,498,580
2022	26	1,148,661
2023 to date	13	1,500,376