Calls have been made on Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) to return to the Exchequer almost €60,000 it paid to a communications company before appearing before the Oireachtas accounts committee.
As The Irish Times reports, the cost has been described as “ludicrous” by Social Democrats TD for North Kildare Aidan Farrelly.
The newspaper reports that IFI said at the weekend that it had paid €53,933, excluding VAT, to DHR Communications.
It said DHR Communications had provided it with “training and communications support” in advance of the Oireachtas public accounts committee hearing on March 26th.
It said DHR’s services had been “delivered through existing contractual arrangements with IFI’s legal advisers" and included "both an executive training/support and a consultancy and documentary research role”.
At the March 26th committee hearing, IFI executives said they had received training over five or six days.
Read The Irish Times here
Separately, Inland Fisheries Ireland has launched a national recruitment drive to hire 66 temporary staff.
A total of 47 seasonal fisheries officers and 19 fisheries research assistants will be deployed across 16 counties from April.
