THE DEPARTMENT of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has defended the handling of a public relations contract for the National Consumer Agency.
A spokeswoman for the department said the tendering process for the contract was conducted “in accordance with all of the normal procedures. Those procedures were followed rigorously and they won it in the same way as any other organisation could have won it”. She was commenting on a claim by Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar that scarce cash was being frittered away by the body.
Mr Varadkar called on Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Mary Coughlan to investigate reports that the consumer agency had been paying €18,000 on average a month to public relations company Q4 since May 2007. The agency will be merged with the Competition Authority later this year.
“That this quango needs to spend any amount of money at all on outside PR is a mystery,” he said. “The NCA is weak and has very few successes under its belt so much so that it is being closed down and merged with other State bodies,” Mr Varadkar added.
“A huge amount of public funds have been wasted on the NCA and this latest information just adds to the impression that scarce cash is being frittered away by a body that is incredibly ineffective in representing consumers.”
He said Ms Coughlan must clarify with the NCA why this money was spent and what was achieved by doing so.
“Mary Coughlan has done little for Irish consumers during her tenure, but even she must find it bizarre that a body that is being shut down needs PR at all,” Mr Varadkar said.
