Cork County Council pays €7m for outside expertise

Cork County Council spent nearly €7m employing external consultants in 2014, while it forked out a total of €3.13m on legal advice during the past three years.

The spend was yesterday criticised by councillors but the chief executive said it was forced to seek outside expertise due to technical staff not being replaced.

Officials revealed details to Cllr Seamus McGrath (FF) who expressed concern that €6,800,537 of public funding was paid to consultants.

A total of €3,143,197 was spent on employing consultants on roads, transportation, and safety projects. The remainder related to agriculture, recreation, and amenity services along with environmental and housing services.

Cllr McGrath said it was acceptable the local authority had to employ outside experts, but said he discovered they were also hired to aid “routine tasks”.

“In my own electoral area they have been employed to look at the feasibility of putting up public lighting on walkways, to deal with vacant houses and look at flood prevention in Passage West, and we still don’t have any progress on that scheme.”

He was also informed €913,044 was spent on legal advice in 2014, included in the overall spend on consultants last year. However, €1,073,265 was expended on legal advisers in 2013 and €1,152,330 in 2012.

Cllr McGrath said legal assistance was sought to interpret documentation received from the Department of Environment and but felt it was money wasted as the department could have been simply asked to provide guidance.

“It’s a huge figure by any stretch of the imagination. We could employ 10 or 12 solicitors a year for the amount of money being spent on legal advice. I want to know what measures and safeguards put in place to ensure such experts [consultants] are really needed.”

Council CEO Tim Lucey said the engagement of consultants was a necessary part of large businesses, both public and private, and the council did not have the range of skills necessary to cover everything.

“We’re also down 37% in staffing levels across the professional and technical side since 2008. It’s a fact that there’s huge demand on our resources and wouldn’t have been able to get projects across the line otherwise.”

Mr Lucey said consultants were brought in to aid 41 major roads projects in the past five years, mostly for national roads schemes. He said the money would “be recuperable over time from the NRA”.

Funding given to consultants represented about 2% of the council’s annual budget spend, he advised, and argued the local authority sought quotations in advance in order to achieve value for money.

But Cllr Andrias Moynihan (FF) said: “We all recognise that a huge depth of expertise is required to run County Hall but it’s hard to grasp the figures. The standout figure for me is the amount of money spent on consultants for roads and transportation. We have our own roads’ department and we’re getting less money for projects so why is this.”

Cllr Kevin O’Keeffe (FF) and Cllr Des O’Grady (SF) asked if the spend on consultants had anything to do with the Department of Environment recruitment embargo on local authorities.