Council pays €18m to outside consultants

Outside consultants employed by Ireland’s largest local authority were paid a staggering €18.3m over a three-year period.

The monies were paid by Cork County Council over the period 2009-2011.

The figures were revealed yesterday at a meeting in County Hall following a request for information from Fianna Fáil councillors Seamus McGrath and Christopher O’Sullivan.

It emerged consultants received €8.6m in 2009. The following year €5.7m was paid out and, last year, €4m.

“It’s a significant sum of money, and much higher than I thought it would be,” said Cllr McGrath, the brother of Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesman, Michael McGrath TD.

“I welcome the fact there is a significant reduction in recent years. Even allowing for the reduction, it is still large.” The councillor said he wanted to know if the authority could reduce the payments further, especially considering the serious financial constraints the county council faced.

“Why do we engage consultants to the extent that we do. We have very competent people in the planning, engineering departments and others. We could use the money elsewhere,” Cllr McGrath said.

Cllr O’Sullivan, meanwhile, said: “It seems that with any capital project (contract) which comesbefore us, the first sentence always reads that we have appointed such and such a consultant to do it. Surely we have people with appropriate skills in the architects, environment and engineering offices.”

He told fellow councillors the local authority had often used expertise in third-level institutions before, at little or no cost.

Cllr O’Sullivan gave examples, such as a study carried out by UCC on a breakwater for Baltimore which the council was using, and the creation by CIT students of a festivals’ database.

“In future I want a breakdown on all consultancy fees paid out and want them itemised in each and every part,” he added.

County manager Martin Riordan said it wasn’tunexpected there was a downward trend over the three years in employing outside consultants.

He pointed out it was as a result of the council’s capital spending projects being slashed to half of the €360m spent in 2009.

“There are situations where consultants were retained by town councils but a lot of that (work) is now being done in-house. For some capital schemes we wouldn’t have the necessary in-house staff to do the work,” he said.

The county manager said the council would always need consultants to some degree and with the economic downturn they were “now good value”.

“The balance is how much (they cost) and how often we use them,” Mr Riordan added.

Cllr McGrath said he welcomed the manager’s comments but said “caution should be exercised” when employing outside consultants in future.

He said he also welcomed Mr Riordan’s promise that he would provide annual updates on the matter.