Government spent €80m on reviews including €1.3m on dog population study 

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín vsaid that the Government 'often outsources decision-making to other entities'. Picture Sazko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie

The previous government spent €80m in its first three years commissioning external reviews for departments.

Details provided to Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín show that more than 1,200 external reports were commissioned by the Government between 2020 and 2023, with a large proportion never published as they were for “internal use only”.

Spending included €1.3m on a study that included reviewing Ireland’s dog population, €50,000 for a review of ‘Natterjack Toad Monitoring and Farm Planning’. and more than €350,000 examining Ireland’s social insurance fund.

Mr Tóibín, who is seeking updated figures on external reports commissioned by all departments, said there needs to be “scrutiny” on the value for money.

The figures obtained from all government departments for the first three years of the last coalition show just under €81m was spent commissioning in the region of 1,200 external reports.

The Department of Agriculture spent the highest amount on external reports, running up bills of €25m between June 2020 and September 2023.

Of 181 reports, 140 were marked as “not for external publication”.

The Department of Housing, meanwhile, spent €17.6m on 319 reports. Much of the focus was on biodiversity, with several projects also looking at areas such as subsea cables.

Nearly €24,000 was spent on a census of Common Scoter ducks and their breeding productivity. Some €323,000 was spent on a four-year bat monitoring project, while another €537,000 was allocated to a “Irish Bat Monitoring Programme, 2022-2027”.

Some €73,000 went towards “boat-based visual surveys for Bottlenose dolphin in the West Connacht Coast Special Area of Conservation”, while €50,000 was spent on “Natterjack Toad Monitoring and Farm Planning”.

The Department of Enterprise had the smallest spend on external reports — €463,000 on seven reports.

This was followed by the Department of Defence, which spent €669,000. Almost half of this money was spent on the Independent Review Group examining the Defence Forces at a cost of €311,000.

Mr Tóibín said that the Government “often outsources decision-making to other entities, rather than just rolling up their sleeves and getting on with the work themselves”.

“Extensive research by Aontú has revealed that in the first three years of the last government, departments between them have spent €80m on reviews and reports,” he said.

While some of these reviews are on important matters, we do feel that there needs to be scrutiny on the value of money aspect.

“We can see from our figures that the Department of Housing spent €50,000 monitoring the Natterjack Toad, and that the Department of Agriculture forked out €1.3m to get UCD to conduct a review into Ireland’s dog population.

“We have questions over the appropriateness and costs associated with these reviews. We also have questions over what action is taken on the back of these reviews. How many are sitting unread on ministers’ desks?”

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said the review of the dog population was only part of the €1.347m spent in that case. The spend also included:
- a microbial risk analysis of the public health risk posed by Mycobacterium bovis from the consumption of cheese produced from raw milk originating in infected bovine herds 

- Bovine abortion: risk factors, pathogens and diagnostics

- Bulk tank milk and abattoir surveillance, analysis of antibody testing for Bovine Viral Diarrhoea, Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis and Johne’s Disease and integration into control and eradication programmes 

- and Bayesian Modelling of bovine TB Transmission Factors in Irish Cattle Herds