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John Tierney Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland

Irish Water will spend nearly €86 million on consultants, contractors and legal advice

The new utility company’s submission to the Oireachtas Environment Committee outlines how up to €180 million will be spent to establish it.

IRISH WATER WILL spend just under €86 million on consultants, contractors and legal advice as part of an overall budget of up to €180 million to establish itself, the Oireachtas Environment Committee heard today.

In its written submission to the committee today, the new State utility disclosed that computer giant IBM will receive €44.8 million, Accenture will receive €17.2 million, Ernst & Young will receive €4.6 million and KPMG will get €2.2 million.

Another €13.3 million will go to 18 other contractors who were procured “to support the work” of the major providers.

As well as this, Irish Water will pay nearly €4 million on the procurement of legal services with €970,000 being spent with McCann Fitzgerald and €2.9 million with A&L Goodbody.

This means that in total €85.97 million will be spent on consultancy, contractors, and legal advice as part of an overall budget of €150 million that has been allocated to set up Irish Water between April 2012 and April 2015. There is also a contingency fund of €30 million.

Irish Water’s submissions said that “the full programme, associated work scope and full costs” were presented to the Department of Environment and New ERA in September 2012.

“We did not bring in experts to tell us how to build Irish Water; we brought in contractors to help us build the systems and processes necessary to run the business,” John Tierney told the committee today.

Tierney also argued that these systems will enable Irish Water to deliver a minimum of €2 billion worth of savings for the exchequer by 2021 and provide the Irish people “with a fit for purpose water system”.

‘Fixed price contracts’

In outlining the rationale for the spending, the submission said that five major utility information systems have had to be setup as part of the establishment of Irish Water, including a customer care and billing system, work and asset management system, a financial system, a procurement system and a capital project management system.

“In order to then design and implement these systems to the specifications set out by Bord Gais, we engaged external service providers through a competitive procurement process,” the submission stated.

Tierney will said the use of such expertise is “standard practice”. The submission stated that the main scope of the external work went out to public tender in nine lots with “fixed price, lump sum contracts” to deliver the project.

“The contracts are fixed price contracts. Payments are linked to milestones and are paid on successful delivery of value to Irish Water in the form of specified deliverables,” the submission said.

“Consultants’ performance, milestone delivery and charges are subject to detailed quality assurance, governance and fee retention contractual mechanism”

The submission also highlightec spending by other water utility bodies including a number in the UK, saying that Severn Trent Water expects to spend over £100 million to upgrade its systems, Yorkshire Water has budget for £110 million on IT systems over five years, while Thames Water has installed a new system at a cost of £150 million.

Read: Howlin says FOI will apply to Irish Water, as company insists all contracts are ‘fully compliant’

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    Mute Eggfuel
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    Mar 20th 2012, 7:09 AM

    What a country Ireland is at last growing into to. Its starting to mature at last… Excellent idea

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    Mute Mark O'Flaherty
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    Mar 20th 2012, 10:40 AM

    Its about time Irish heroes who fought in the great war, world war 2 and other wars for foreign armies, namely the British army are remembered. Credit has to be given to Myles Dungan and Kevin Myers for their continuous writing on this topic over the years and of course Mary McAleese for the fantastic work she did in her time as president.

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    Mute Eggers
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    Mar 20th 2012, 11:03 AM

    There was great economic pressure at the time of this recruitment, jobs were scare and people thought that the war would be short, It was a bit of an adventure for a lot of them. Unfortunately it did not turn out like that and the Irish suffered the greatest proportion of fatalities per capita of any people in the allied forces. They were treated as cannon fodder, there was nothing noble or heroic about being ordered out in your thousands to climb up a sea cliff while thousands of Ottoman soldiers shoot at you or charging across a bare field at German artillery. I certainly feel pity for them and how they were used. Like Ireland at the time, most of the men from the south in uniform were pro independence and freedom. Some were not, several of the RIC men that opened up on Bloody Sunday had done their service at the front in WW1. Countless men in the IRA, like the great Tom Barry had fought for years in WW1. My own Grand Uncle fought in WW1 and brought back weapons and grenades for my Grand Father’s IRA unit.

    There is nothing heroic in dying in mud at the hands of an enemy miles away in your thousands for a side that had no trouble with you going over first but nor do I despise them. Money was tight, jobs scare and the pressure to join up was massive. I’m just sad that they died the way they did, same as if they had fought for the Czar or the Kaiser.

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    Mute S P Mc Grath
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    Mar 20th 2012, 11:54 AM

    cannon fodder is all the Irish were in the trenches!!

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    Mute Eggers
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    Mar 20th 2012, 12:31 PM

    Indeed and a poignant point was that Unionist regiments and Nationalist regiments were both seen as Irish by the British colonels and used for first waves attacks.

    A man from Galway or from East Belfast was viewed as just as useful as stopping a German bullet, whatever flag he doodled in letters home.

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    Mute Cez Miname
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    Jan 6th 2014, 12:37 AM

    Bloody nonsense…

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    Mute Cez Miname
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    Jan 6th 2014, 12:34 AM

    “how Irishmen were recruited into British Forces… ” I really get fed up with this lazy post independence language that suggests the irish were dragged into some foreign army. We, like the English, Welsh and Scots simply joined THE Army.

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