Central Bank's spend on consultants increases three-fold to €15.98m in 2025 from 2023
Ken Foxe
The Central Bank’s spend on consultants last year totalled €15.98 million - almost three times the Central Bank outlay on consultants in 2023.
In a written Dáil reply, the Minister for Finance, Simon Harris TD, has stated that during 2024 and 2025, the Central Bank incurred costs in relation to three important IT projects, which increased the annual spend on consultants to €13.5 million in 2024 and €15.9 million in 2025.
The combined €29.4m spent over 2025 and 2024 compares to just €4.47 million in 2023 and €3.8 million in 2022 - or €8.2 million over the two years.
In his reply to Conor McGuinness (SF), Minister Harris states that the Central Bank underwent a significant IT changeover project, Gen3, in relation to its IT infrastructure and systems in 2024 and 2025, requiring external expertise given the complex nature of the transition.
He said: “This was a critical project, with a need to ensure the Central Bank moved smoothly from one system to the other without disrupting the important work of the Central Bank, or loss of critical information.
The spend on the Gen3 project relating to consultancy firms was €7.7 million in both 2024 and 2025.
He said that the Gen3 programme modernised the Central Bank’s critical technology infrastructure, which is essential to fulfilling its statutory mandate of maintaining monetary and financial stability.
He said that the programme successfully replaced legacy ICT systems, introduced a new managed-services model for ICT, and established an enterprise-grade platform enabling cloud adoption and AI capabilities within the Central Bank.
Minister Harris said that the programme was completed on time and under budget.
He said that the Central Bank “also incurred costs on an ICT programme called Elevate to ensure it has a fit for purpose IT operating model to serve the future needs of the Central Bank in a dynamic technology landscape”.
He said that the spending on the Elevate programme relating to consultancy firms in 2024 was €1.2 million and in 2025 was €2.6 million.
Minister Harris said that the Central Bank “also undertook a Cloud Enablement programme, which developed a robust cloud computing resource to enable the ongoing needs of the organisation for future data analytics and AI tools and capabilities”.
He said that the spend on the Cloud Enablement programme was €1.3 million in 2024 and €0.4 million in 2025.
Minister Harris said that the Central Bank “remains committed to managing its core operating costs in accordance with value for money principles, in the context of continued evolution in the nature, scale and complexity of its work”.
Minister Harris said that the Central Bank “is transparent and accountable and prioritises responsible spending and value for money”.
He said that “the use of consultants is targeted where specialist expertise is necessary and it is generally limited to specific programmes and objectives”.
Minister Harris said that in relation to future expenditure on IT consultancy, “this will be linked to any future iterations of a technology strategy by the Central Bank which will be driven by business needs”.
He said: “Consultancy expenditure will be kept under review and the Central Bank will seek to minimise expenditure where possible and ensure value for money.”
