2912. Deputy Sorca Clarke asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the expenditure incurred by her Government Department on external consultancy services in each of the past five years, broken down by consultancy firm, project and amount paid; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [61340/26]

The information identified by the Department in relation to external consultancy services during the period 2022 to 2026 to date is set out in the table below.

The Department’s central contract records provide cumulative expenditure recorded against individual contracts but does not track an annual breakdown of expenditure for each contract. Accordingly, the table presents the total expenditure recorded against each contract rather than attributing expenditure to individual years. The year shown is the year in which the contract commenced and should not be interpreted as the year in which all expenditure recorded against that contract was incurred.

External consultancy services 2022-2026