THE government has been accused of spending close to €100,000 on employing two firms to carry out reviews of computer security to ensure hackers don't compromise official communications.

The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission asked the consultancy firm Mazars to undertake an investigation into how secure computers were in the Dáil and Seanad.

However, it has since emerged that another group of consultants from Fujitsu Siemens had already been hired by the Oireachtas to carry out the exact same type of work.

A spokesman said: "There is no question of duplication or overlap in any of the services provided by the external contractors concerned.

"The contracted role of Fujitsu Siemens is to operate and provide advice on a range of IT operational functions such as help desk, network management etc.

"In this context, we also purchased a range of consultancy/advice services from Fujitsu Siemens in areas such as security and redevelopment of the network."

A well-placed source in the Houses of the Oireachtas said the work undertaken by Mazars was already being carried out internally by Fujitsu Siemens as part of ongoing "risk analysis".

The source said: "The internal audit function looks at security from an external perspective. The methodology and perspective of Mazars work may have been slightly different, but the information and recommendations were the exact same.

"The Mazars report was more general and not as in-depth. The question is: why commission two reports – one general and one specific – that gather the same information and issue the same recommendations."

The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission also asked another IT firm AMAS to conduct an inquiry into the redevelopment of the government website.

However, informed sources also claim that external consultants work full-time carrying out identical work in the Oireachtas.

A spokesman again denied any duplication had taken place: "The AMAS involvement was specifically focused on devising the correct strategy and organisational approach to development of the website."

The source said the Fujitsu Siemens staff already employed in the Houses of the Oireachtas should have been used to carry out the work.

The source said: "There is more value to be gained by only having one consultant conduct work at the same time. The main cause of this is a turf war, the result, less value for public money."