THE Minister for Education, Ms Breathnach, has defended her decision to employ the Bill O'Herlihy Communications Group after giving five firms just one weekend to submit tenders for a contract.
The communications firm has been employed on a three month basis to provide a public relations advisory service to her Department on a range of issues including implementation of the White Paper on Education.
A spokeswoman for the Minister said last night that the procedures for employing consultants were adhered to at all times in respect of awarding the contract.
But earlier yesterday, the Fianna Fail education spokesman, Mr Micheal Martin, took issue with the Minister over the short length of time given to each company to submit tenders.
Requests for tender documentation were sent to five companies Drury Communications Ltd, O'Herlihy, Gibneys, Wilson Hartnell, and Murray Consultants on Friday, June 14th, with the request that replies be returned to the Department of Education not later than 5 p.m. on Monday, June 17th. Four of the five firms responded.
According to Mr Martin, allowing the companies essentially just one full day to prepare a response was "highly questionable".
Though the cost of the contract would not be revealed by the Department until the work was complete, the spokeswoman said the O'Herlihy Group won the work on the basis that its presentation was the most suitable and most competitively priced.
The communications company was necessary because of "the need for some kind of co-ordination and strategy as the proposals in the White Paper including two pieces of legislation come on stream," she said.
Mr Martin claimed it was absolutely unacceptable that the Minister "should continue to waste taxpayers' money in order to improve her own public image".
The O'Herlihy Group had been contracted "despite the fact that, for over a year now, Drury Communications Ltd has been advising the Department on all aspects of departmental communications strategy," he added.
The Minister told Mr Martin in a written Dail reply last week that the cost of the Drury report on all aspects of communications in her Department was £22,869.
Details of the contract and payments involving the O'Herlihy Group would be subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Minister added.
"It is also worth noting that the Department of Education already has its own separate communications unit headed by a director of communications and staffed by a number of people," Mr Martin said.
The Government seemed intent on appointing consultant after consultant to run the country, and the amount of taxpayers' money involved was "simply a scandal", he added.