This time last year, government departments estimated they would need 98m in 2005 to hire consultants to work on projects they said were beyond the expertise of their own staff.

But despite Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's promise last autumn to cut back the overuse of consultants, costs had rocketed to 131m by the end of 2005.

The main contributor to the increase was an extra 30m spent by the Health Service Executive (HSE) on consultants for its ill-fated P-Pars payroll system. The HSE suspended work on the 160m system in September, but consultants Deloitte and Touche still earned around 1 million a month working on it in 2005.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheal Martin was equally guilty of overspending. Martin said he needed 6m for consultants last year but ended up spending almost three times as much at 16m.

Two years ago, before he departed for Brussels, then finance minister Charlie McCreevy was scathing of the government spend on consultants which, at the time, was just short of 67m. McCreevy said he saw no reason why the work couldn't be done by the thousands of extra civil servants the government continued to hire every year. Two years later, the cost of consultants has doubled to 131m, while an extra 13,500 civil servants have joined the payroll.

The figures come on foot of the Taoiseach's recent acceptance of a medal from the Institute of Management Consultants in Ireland, which represents many of the consultants working on government contracts.

Speaking at the awards ceremony on 16 February, Bertie Ahern admitted that the government had "mixed results".

He said government needed to strengthen the appraisal process before hiring consultants. "Anything less will damage confidence and ultimately restrict the scope of public sector organisations to contract for consultancy services, " he said.