“I Was Advised That The Estimated Cost Was €230,000”

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From top: Clerk of the Dáil and Secretary General Peter Finnegan; a Komori offset printer; from Mr Finnegan’s report on the purchase of the printer

This morning.

Clerk of the Dáil and Secretary General Peter Finnegan’s report on the purchase of the Komori printing press, which is located in the basement of Kildare House, has been published.

In it, he noted that during discussions between the House of the Oireachtas Service and the Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General during the audit of the appropriation accounts 2018, and ahead of an appearance before the Public Accounts Committee, Mr Finnegan was advised that the estimated cost of the printer was €230,000.

His report that the total cost to date in relation to the printer, that has yet to print a single page, is €1,598,605. A breakdown for this figure is as follows:

Printing equipment: €1,369,605.

Print room works: €229,000.

Mr Finnegan noted that “necessary additional works on the fabric of the building while the contractor was on site and access was available” were carried out to the tune of €195,000.

However, he said these costs, which will be paid by the OPW, are “not attributable to the works necessary to deal with the head height issue arising from the installation” of the printer.

Read it (and weep) in full here

Previously: Millon Euro Question

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20 thoughts on ““I Was Advised That The Estimated Cost Was €230,000”

  1. Bebe

    And now it’s a clothes horse with a pair of trousers hanging on it !
    See Christine Bohan twitter for pic …..

  2. Praetorian.

    The likes of this yoke will say whatever needs to be said to please whoever needs to hear it because he or his ilk will never,ever be held accountable for their failures.

  3. Murtles

    Taking one element of the above Lot 4 – Guillotine.
    The most expensive I could find on the search of Google was from the Ruian Maoyuan Machine Co., Ltd for an industrial guillotine cutter. A pricey €21,750 (€19,746.83). Great to see the gravy train riders in the Dail accept a contract at least 3 times the price. If your in business, the best contract you can get is an Irish Government RFT contract. I’ll sell a chair in my shop for €80, but I’ll sell it to the government for €380. No such thing as value for money here.

  4. GobDaw

    Rememer flamboyant-socks holding the placard – ‘Welfare Cheats, cheat us all’

    Jonny on the scratcher whie working nixers: 12k
    Not reading the specification of a printer 1.8 million
    Childrens Hospital/NBP, 3.5 billion a pop

    For some things in life there is Mastercard, for everything else there are brown envelopes.

  5. italia'90

    *** Edited version*** ooops

    So let me get this straight and please by all means correct me if I’m wrong
    but,
    the Clerk of the Dáil and Secretary General Peter Finnegan’s report on the purchase of the printer
    which he was ultimately responsible for, after investigating the matter has found himself not gulity?

    So it must have been the Russians riiiiiight, of course it was the Russians, why didn’t we think of that one beforehand!? Feckin Putin interfering in our democracy again!

    1. Otis Blue

      Yep, that’s pretty much it.

      Just listening to all the PAC members grandstanding about ‘somebody being made accountable’. Well go ahead and just do it. It’d be pretty easy to work how the cock up came about and who bears responsibility.

      Won’t happen though.

      1. italia'90

        Can you recall what Sean Fleming said off hand?
        The reason I ask is because of the last words I remember
        reading from the transcript, which I just can’t find online anymore,
        of the PAC meeting minutes where the opw architect told them all that the damn printer won’t fit was, “Thank you, we’ll look into that.”
        I’m imagining Fleming saying that now with a wry smile across his face and a knowing grifters wink to his mate, Peter *WAG Finnegan.
        *Wild Ass Guess Finnegan, as he’s affectionately known in Doheny and Nesbitt’s.

  6. Catherine costelloe

    We accept very low standards from the Dail. Imagine refusing to upgrade the hotel in Roscommon for wheelchair victims throughout the island and priorotizing an effin printer that lies idle. Lunatics running the asylum.

  7. Broadbag

    €94K of electrical costs for the printing room + €30k ancillary electrical costs – how on earth!? These figures aren’t grounded in reality at all. I’m shocked! etc…

    1. Paulus

      Shocked indeed:

      And as for electrical costs not being grounded – this could be a live issue for a while yet.
      It’ll go down to the wire.

  8. V

    This story really wee wees me off

    And its not just the cost and the impact the works have had and imposed on staff etc
    or the Joke that is on all of us now

    like, why was it purchased at all?
    Why are they competing with printers up and down the country?

    Make the TD’s source their printing jobs locally

    Walk the Talk about supporting local business and at the same time make the Rural Broadband Billionaires a chance to prove themselves

    1. curmudgeon

      Yeah the real scandal is that once in office Oireachtas members have carte blanch to print whatever and however much they want, at no personal cost (thanks taxpayer). So they can essentially carpet bomb their constituency with advertisements and propganda, while their opponents (if they have no friends in the oireachtas) have to shell out for their own print campaign.

      1. italia'90

        Oi! Hey! YO! C’mere to me he shouts at the farmers,
        departing Dublin in their light infantry vehicles.
        There’s a playing field between Kildare Street and Merrion Square that needs to be leveled!!!

  9. Spaghetti Hoop

    We have yet to see the justification for the RFT and why an industrial printer is required. That requires examination also.

  10. italia'90

    Can you recall what Sean Fleming said off hand?
    The reason I ask is because of the last words I remember
    reading from the transcript, which I just can’t find online anymore,
    of the PAC meeting minutes where the opw architect told them all that the damn printer won’t fit was, “Thank you, we’ll look into that.”
    I’m imagining Fleming saying that now with a wry smile across his face and a knowing grifters wink to his mate, Peter *WAG Finnegan.
    *Wild Ass Guess Finnegan, as he’s affectionately known in Doheny and Nesbitt’s.

  11. Ron

    And what will the daw jawed Irish electorate do? Same thing they do every other time, SFA. In fact, it’s likely that FF and FG candidates will top the poll in the bye elections tomorrow. it’s incredible stupidity lol and it’s the reason this country is the laughing stock of the EU.

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