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THE DÁIL CLERK has today defended the business case for purchasing the controversial and costly Oireachtas printer.
He said the purchase made “financial sense” because the two old printers, which were purchased in 2004, were costing €65,000 a year in repair, maintenance and spare parts.
The clerk, Peter Finnegan, told committee members that he stands over his statement that the business case is still sound.
Yesterday, TheJournal.ie revealed that the overall cost to the State for the printing press ordered by the Oireachtas is over €2 million.
The total cost runs to €2,020,143, over €500,000 more than was anticipated.
The business case for buying the new printer put forward in 2017 was that it would cost €1.5 million.
Total costs to be funded by the Houses of the Oireachtas for the printer is €1,798,818 (inclusive of VAT). However, taking in costs to the OPW, the costs escalated.
However, the Komori printing press will continue to accrue maintenance costs, the clerk said today.
For the first two years, there are no maintenance fees. In year three, maintenance fees cost €16,000, in year four, maintenance fees will cost €21,000 and in year five, the fees will cost €25,000.
The printer has an expected life-span of 12 to 15 years. The leasing option was not considered, the committee was told today.
The initial report from Dáil clerk Peter Finnegan concluded that the requirements of the building and other regulations in relation to “head height” where the room was meant to be stored, were neither “understood nor examined at the critical early stages of the project”.
It resulted in structural works being carried out to ensure the printer fitted in the room. The Dáil printer is yet to be operational.
The clerk confirmed today that the team evaluating the tender for the Oireachtas printer “actually missed the statement on the bottom of the page which said the head height was limited”.
Appearing before the Dáil Public Accounts Committee this afternoon, Finnegan said:
We are not an organisation that has the luxury of installing equipment in a green field site. We are not Google down in the docks. We are an organisation that functions from Dublin 2 in very cramped conditions and invariably costs arise as a result of that.
He said the Leinster House complex faces challenges in relation to accommodation.
When major equipment installation is required, it invariably involves structural works, he said.
Finnegan pointed out that when two printers were bought in 2004, structural works were required and cost twice as much as the construction works for the current printer.
He said there are “very cramped conditions and invariably costs arise front that”.
Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane questioned the clerk about why the issue of costs was not raised with the committee back in July when the accounts for the Houses of the Oireachtas were being discussed.
“I gave the best answers I could at the time,” the clerk told the committee. He said he had a limited amount of information in relation to the cost overruns that day.
Cullinane said it “would have been better” if the clerk had alerted the committee about the issues that had arisen with the printer.
The clerk said he did not intentionally withhold any information from the committee, for which Cullinane said he was implying that Finnegan consciously did so.
Finnegan said he tried to answer all the questions at the July meeting to “the best of his ability”.
He said he understood the public anger out there about the project, stating “it is a lot of money”. He added that no one can say that the project was well managed.
Speaking about the mistakes made, Finnegan said “honest human errors” were made. He said the absence of having an architectural input on the evaluation team was probably the main issue.
In his view, had there been architectural input at that stage, the issue of head height would have been identified “right at the start” and “would have impacted on the business case”.
“We would have a truer cost for these works which would have been incorporated in the business case,” he said.
Other mistakes included that drawings of the room and the head height which were emailed on to the team “didn’t trigger or raise any alarm bells”.
“There was a series of mistakes,” he said.
Fianna Fáil’s Shane Cassells asked the clerk if discussions with the Komori company had taken place in relation to liability.
Finnegan told the committee that he met with the company agent and was told that as Komori had flagged the head height issues in the tender, as well as emailing drawings with mentions of the head height concerns it would be the view of the firm that “if the customer is happy, Komori will supply the printer, and the legal obligation is on the customer”.
Having consulted with legal experts, the clerk said due to the warnings issued by Komori, there is no breach of contract in this case.
“That unfortunately is the reality,” he said.
Given the circumstances, other avenues are being investigated by the clerk, including getting an “ex-gratia payment or gesture to the Houses of the Oireachtas in relation this machine”.
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No, what makes financial sense is to have Financially Sensible Individuals in charge of Procurement.
@UCC Social Democrats Society: and what’s better again – the “team” missed the small print.
But The Clerk thinks it’s still a sound business arrangement.
This, Ladies, Gentlemen & others, is just fabulous isn’t it?
@UCC Social Democrats Society: I would love to know what qualifications he has. If this happened in the private sector heads would roll. But who cares its only the tax payers footing the bill so let’s go out and buy the biggest and dearest printer we can find as it makes financial sense!!!!
@Orla Cosgrave: I don’t believe we should discriminate on the basis of qualification – some people never took formal 3rd Level education but their experiences are qualification enough!
On the matter of Accountability however, Qualifications, experience excuse nothing.
The best way to demand accountability in ALL levels of Government, is to vent to your TD via letter & email. They legislate, and if they don’t you get to hold them accountable at the ballot box. Such fun!
@Orla Cosgrave: Ah in fairness its not the biggest and dearest going. Aside from the fact they didn’t take the dimensions of the thing into account which is the big issue here, what annoys me is that this is constantly being referred to as a printer. This is not a printer, by conventional standards, it’s a printing press, a different beast altogether. It could be worse they Coul be producing newspapers/magazines and bought a web printing press, that’d be in the tens of millions.
@UCC Social Democrats Society: I would be curious to know What the Soc Dems position is on sanctioning civil servants and public servants for such failures?
Would it be acceptable to deduct the cost overruns from the pension fund for example (as recently suggested)? Is dismissal appropriate? Or a number of failures of incompetence resulting in dismissal and loss of pension entitlements?
In short / what is the Soc Dem position on accountability?
@Shazam37: they eat, sleep & breath Accountability.
I’ve been a procurement manager for many years, if had signed contracts like this and cost the company, I would’ve been fired
@Gisbert Bayertz: Ever poor dope knows how to do the weeks shopping here except those who ended up going to university and then ended up working for the government and that includes those building childrens hospitals as well. The problem is government money isn’t theirs, its the publics in the form of taxation. They are never made responsible for the costs and there are always too many 10,000 euro hammers in those projects???
@TamuMassif2019: what they need is not a B.A., but 5 years apprenticeships in Smurfits or Ryanair,
& be given access to our state cheque books only if they survive that, which most of them would not.
The Dáil has no idea of current disbelief amongst the public on this topic. People going to food banks for Xmas and a €2 million printer. It’s literally a joke.
@Dermot Foley: well that clerks has to knows something what we have no idea the new printer don’t need maintenance and parts at all that’s miracle
@Dermot Foley: The more something costs then the more corruption can be hidden within that cost, that is the problem. The detail is always missing in corruption and that is the problem with corruption?
P45.
@Shayne O’Donoghue: why has mr Finnegan not addressed the voting scandal in the dail, or is it a case of stay quiet and it will go away.What happened was an attack on the the corner stone of democracy. The camels back is about to break.
The net difference of maintenance cost is €45,000. It would take 45 years for this printer to pay itself off Vs the old printers. Does he actually know how to use a calculator or is it just measuring tapes he doesn’t know how to use?
Previous machines had a 15 year lifespan, let’s assume that the new machine will be replaced in 20 years..
Cost to keep the existing machines: 20*65,000 = EUR1.3M
New installation: 1.7M outlay which turned to 2M, 16k maintenance year 3, 21k year 4, 25k annually for another 16 years which is likely understated because I’m sure maintenance cost increases with age. Cost to train staff not yet known…
I cannot see how there was ever a business case for this..
@Wreck Tangle: 100% , not to mention that there isn’t a country in the world that isn’t expecting a significant decline in printing requirements in the next 20 years – EVERYTHING that can be digitally and put online will be – honestly the incompetence in the public sector is beyond comprehension. The public anger at the doors of the next election is being very under estimated by this shower. Most ordinary people are just sick of the wastage of our money – the ‘temporary’ USC and all other widespread taxes we pay are being pi**ed away on a daily basis. Sick of it.
And who pays the dail clerk?its like rolling out chemical Ali to defend saddam Hussein,what an embarrassment to wheel this man out in front of the oireachtas committee to defend the indefensible
@dick dastardly: hahaha enjoyed that comparison. Dead right
@dick dastardly: Or, let’s be bold, Sarah Ferguson defending Prince Andrew.
Can someone enlighten me here, what is it they are printing exactly that requires a printing press that cannot be done with an office inkjet printer?
@Dave.: That is truly a great question and I have not seen an answer on that yet. In this day and age, printing should be very limited.
@Dave.: Probably election shite nobody wants.
@Dave.: People like the Healy-Rae’s like to print calendars , Christmas cards and other rubbish at the tax payers expense.
This clerk should be sacked immediately.
Over €1,000 million overspend on The Childrens Hospital !! 500 times more then the cost of this printer. This is small fry, why is there not constant press over that???
Printer scandal, voting scandal…. Dail cheats cheat us all!
€270,000 to house a printer! Nice 3 bed for that could house a family. wtf
As much financial sense as cost of childrens hospital.
That guy needs a kick in the bolix if he thinks its ok to waste money like that
He’s not going to condemn it after all as his job is on the line???
What ever happened to knowing what your doing? Investigate what’s needed, then plan, double check the numbers and get all the information first and then shop around followed by buying what you need, you don’t need to go to university to do that???
It’s amazing how frivolous our politicians are with money that’s not theirs.
Cramped conditions in the Dail? Bollocks
I’ve heard it all now
We are not allowed to comment on the Micky Wallace article why ? Ordinary people suffer the consequences of austerity but he is immune.
@Joe Johnson: Surprised to know that he keept big house empty for ages while Irish people slept in the park in front of his house. They are not drug addicts or alcoholics – just have nowhere to live. And yet he promised to take several Afgani asylum seekers…
Who got the brown envelope
So we pretty much paid the same price for a printer as the airport we just bought, and we could buy a thousand of those airports for the same price as the hospital we’re building. Class!!
Did anyone ask if the Printer is been used or are they still outsourcing printing at enormous cost
Just remember these officials are in a privileged position, the stuff they know about ministers guarantees that they will never be dismissed.
The level of indifference displayed by the clerk stinks. Absolutely no reasonable sense of responsibility
65000 a year, that’s 30 years to reach 2 million. Very costly ? FFS
The two old printers were costing 65k p/yr to service and maintain so it made “financial sense” in 2017 to spend 1.5m on a new printer. Enough to keep the old one going for another 23 years. On top of that, after spending that 1.5m plus the 500k overrun they will still have to spend at least 1/3 of the current servicing costs!!! Ye wouldn’t be so stupid with yere own money. Ye wouldn’t last a week in the private sector
This is not ok, & will not be glossed over by the electorate, when they get handfuls of colourful pamphlets in the door next time out.
The sheer hard necks that attempt to justify this expense need to be confined to filing jobs, or better still, seconded to the dept. of social welfare, to experience how less fortunate people have to exist.
Disgusting profligacy.
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