Government spent €250m on private consultants

THE Government has spent at least a quarter of a billion euro of taxpayers’ money on outside consultants, it was revealed last night.

The exposure of the massive cost of private experts piles further pressure on the Coalition, which is reeling from the spiralling €180 million price of two disastrous computer systems which provoked a political storm this week.

Anger that €70m of the €150m cost of the health service's PPARS payroll system had gone to consultants last night forced Tánaiste Mary Harney to pledge to personally vet such expenditure in future.