Department of Finance spends €280,000 on courses

The Department of Finance has spent over €280,000 over the past year in third level and training courses for its staff, new figures show.

According to the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, the department has spent over €15,000 on one course alone, a Leadership and Development Programme that cost €15,300.

A further €4,900 was spent on mandarins taking an executive programme on country sovereign risk management and crisis resolution.

However, €175 was invested in a course entitled ‘Maintaining the momentum reform priorities after the Troika Programme’.

In total, the Department of Finance spent €119,370 on training courses and an additional €165,516 on third-level courses — a total of €284,886.

In a written Dáil response to Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald, Mr Noonan said: “The Department of Finance continues to invest in staff development in order to supplement the skills and qualifications of our teams, through a combination of internal and external training and development initiatives.

He added: “The department strives to improve training in order to develop greater professional, technical, management and leadership skills.”

On the Leadership and Development Programme, a department spokeswoman said yesterday: “Thirteen members of senior management received training under the Organisational Learning and Development Initiative Executive Programme amounting to €10,000, by Dr Paul Mooney of Tandem Consulting Limited, during the period May and June 2014.”

She added: “One member of senior management received training from the IPA as part of their Leadership Challenge Programme for Senior Public Servants, amounting to €5,300.”

This programme commenced in March 2014 and concluded in June 2014.

Separately, the Minister for Public Expenditure, Brendan Howlin confirmed that his department over the past year has spent over €50,000 with various parties for ‘executive coaching’, with the top amounts going to People Resources and Seven, who each received over €10,000.