The department in charge of social welfare paid €25 million to one business consultancy in a single year and more than €22 million to another, in a succession of high-cost information technology projects that together cost €1.4 million on average every week.
The spending by the Department of Social Protection “on key business activities” was set out in a parliamentary question reply that shows how companies have built up huge State revenues as public bodies farm out critical computer services to private operators.
After political attacks on Government parties for wasteful public spending, the disclosure is likely to ignite fresh debate on the amount of taxpayers’ money that is spent on consultants.
Figures given to Social Democrat TD Aidan Farrelly show the department paid out €72.86 million on private information technology services in 2024. Over two years, it paid a total of €126.51 million to the four largest suppliers.
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“This is a staggering amount of expenditure on external services in just one area of the Department of Social Protection,” Mr Farrelly said.
The biggest beneficiary was Dutch-owned IT consultancy Bearing Point, which received €25.13 million from the department in 2024 and €22.83 million in 2023.
Bearing Point did not respond to a phone inquiry seeking comment for this piece. Accounts for Bearing Point Ireland show a pretax profit of €8.2 million in 2023. Between 2020-2023, the Dublin business paid €22.7 million in dividends to its parent company.
The second-largest beneficiary was the accounting firm Deloitte, which received €22.2 million from the department in 2024. Deloitte also received €17.71 million in 2023. “Deloitte does not comment on individual client matters,” it said.
Consultants Accenture received €15.52 million in 2024 and €13.51 million in 2023. Accenture declined to comment.
EY, formerly Ernst & Young, received €5 million in 2024 and €4.6 million in 2023. The firm said: “EY does not comment on client matters.”
The department said it engaged companies “to provide assistance with specific IT technical skills and projects”, adding such services supported it “in providing a high-quality service to the public”.
“These resources are required, among other things, to support the development, administration, and maintenance of over 140 schemes and services across three corporate platforms,” it said.
“In addition, these partners also support the extensive online platforms provided by the department such as MyWelfare, WelfarePartners and the Governmentwide identity platform MyGovID.”
Mr Farrelly expressed concern about the extent of private IT contracts. “The State really has to get itself to a point in which it can wean itself off the reliance on contractors,” the Kildare North TD said.
“It appears to me the department is devolving all responsibility to contractors. It is essential that full value for money is achieved in relation to these sums.”
The spending included €6.47 million with Bearing Point for “production support, essential maintenance and enhancement” on the department’s main computer system.
Deloitte received €5.29 million for a project known as “web self-services”. Accenture received €4.12 million for “long-term schemes modernisation”.
The department’s IT services process more than three million income support applications and 87 million individual payments each year, it said. Total expenditure was in excess of €24 billion.
There were more than 2.8 million transactions on MyWelfare and more than 4.8 million transactions on WelfarePartners, the department said. Such work included support for more than 4.8 million MyGovID accounts.
