The departments of health and education have been accused of covering up expenditure of millions of euro on consultancy fees by failing to answer a written Dáil question on the matter.
Fine Gael frontbench spokesman Jim O'Keeffe has challenged Minister for Health Mary Harney and Minister for Education Mary Hanafin to answer a question he tabled for written answer to all Ministers on December 13th asking for a breakdown on the total spend on consultants since the Government came into power in 1997.
Twelve of the 15 Government departments initially replied to Mr O'Keeffe's question before Christmas, revealing a total expenditure of €230 million on consultancy services since 1997.
However, the Ministers for health, education and communications asked for more time to compile the information.
On January 4th, Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey released to Mr O'Keeffe the information going back to 2000. But he said he was unable to provide information on expenditure prior to 2000 as the cost of resources which would have been needed in "the retrieval and assessment" of the material would have outweighed "any possible benefit which might accrue from this collection".
He revealed the department spent some €50 million on consultants since 2000: €4.130 million in 2000; €10.3 million in 2001; €8.6 million in 2002; €2.7 million in 2003; €4.6 million in 2004; €10 million in 2005 and €9 million in 2006.
Mr O'Keeffe said yesterday that Ms Harney and Ms Hanafin must now explain why they haven't produced the information. "What have they to hide? This is an abuse of the parliamentary process. We need answers," he said.
He expressed his disappointment that Mr Dempsey was only able to furnish figures going back to 2000. "If every other Cabinet Minister could answer the question in full there is no reason why Ministers Harney, Hanafin and Dempsey could not do likewise."
Last night spokespeople for Ms Harney and Ms Hanafin said they would be giving Mr O'Keeffe the information he sought in the next week and that the delay was due to the huge amount of work involved in compiling the figures.
Mr O'Keeffe said the total figures to date for the spend on consultancy services of €230 million, plus the €50 million from Mr Dempsey's department, was "truly shocking".
He called for an independent value-for-money audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General on consultancy costs as a matter of urgency.
The figures given to date to Mr O'Keeffe show that the highest spending department was enterprise, trade and employment at €50.4 million.
The second-highest spending was the Department of the Environment at €44.4 million since 1997. In 2003 it spent €17.1 million but this was reduced to €3 million for the first 11 months of last year. The Department of Social and Family Affairs spent €31.3 million to the end of November 2006.