Irish Water to hire more consultants

Irish Water will continue to spend millions of euro hiring outside consultants to investigate the status and design of its engineering infrastructure despite the political and public uproar caused by the revelation that €50m has already been spent on consultancies.

The controversy is expected to come before Cabinet today when ministers will consider bringing the agency under the Freedom of Information Act, which it had not planned on doing until next year.

As the company’s managing director John Tierney today prepares to be grilled by two Oireachtas committees in as many days, a spokeswoman for the state-owned Irish Water said it was normal for a company on the scale of Irish Water to continue to outsource.