The Arts Council spent almost €1 million with outside consultancy firms in the 18 months up to this summer, new records show.
The spending included hundreds of thousands on legal advice, with €244,000 in 2024 and €320,000 in the first six months of this year, paid to Beauchamps solicitors.
The records were released following a Freedom of Information request.
Spending at the Arts Council, which administers grants and support programmes for the arts nationwide, has been under significant scrutiny since it emerged earlier this year it had spent €6.7 million on a mothballed IT project.
The records showed a firm called O’Kennedy Consulting was paid €113,186 in 2024 in relation to its RAISE initiative, which aims to promote private investment and drive philanthropy to the arts.
Another firm, Culture Works, was paid €85,871 for consultancy and advisory work, while another firm, Further, was paid €57,390 across the two years for a digital arts mentorship programme, which appears to include payments for mentors themselves.
A spokeswoman for the Arts Council said that it, like all organisations, procures expertise externally when it is not available internally. “All Arts Council expenditure is regularly reviewed and expenditure details, including on consultancy, are published in the Annual Report and Accounts each year. All services are procured in line with agreed procedures.”
The total spending covered by the records comes to €979,099.
Separate records released to The Irish Times showed the Arts Council spent an average of almost €1 million annually with a single contractor providing recruitment and other services.
The figures, which were released under the Freedom of Information Act, showed that a total of €4.8 million was paid to Dublin firm Sureskills across the period 2020-2024, or an average of €964,000 in each of the five years.
The Arts Council said it had entered into two contracts with the company over the period, the most recent being signed in 2023 for recruitment services.
“This contract ensures the Arts Council maintains business continuity through the provision of temporary administrative cover,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. Under the current contract, a total of €1.6 million was paid in 2023 and 2024.
Under the previous contract, which the Arts Council said was for the provision of externally managed services, a total of €3.2 million was paid for the period 2020-2022.
The money paidcovers both wages and salaries paid to individuals working in the Arts Council and fees paid to Sureskills, the spokeswoman said. The Arts Council declined to outline how many positions are covered by the figures, and the split between salaries and fees.
The Arts Council’s annual salary costs for 2023 were €5.7 million, while agency hire for general and ICT staff came to €1.569 million. In 2023, Sureskills were paid €651,015.
The spokeswoman said that the current contract was awarded following a competitively run tender competition where it was found to have been the most economically advantageous tender.
Records also showed that the Arts Council spent almost €90,000 on outside catering services from 2020 to midway through 2025. Also, a photography firm was paid €10,332 for work between 2023 and 2025, according to the records. A spokeswoman for the Arts Council said that profile pictures of all employees “are required for internal use to ensure secure online and physical access to our systems and our offices only”.
Earlier this year, the Arts Council was told by the Department of Culture that no expenditure outside its routine operational requirements could be undertaken without prior written consent from the department.
A spokesman for the department said that requests for external services are considered and approved on a case-by-case basis in line with this advice and “keeps the need for this process under review”.