This article is from page 12 of the 2006-02-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
PAYMENTS to consultants working on Clare County Council’s €32 million Cliffs of Moher visitor centre pushed the council’s overall consultants’ bill to over €5 million last year.
In figures released to The Clare People through a Freedom of Information request, the council confirmed this week that the council paid out €5,275,131 to consultants last year.
The biggest winner was Corkbased architectural firm, Reddy O’Riordan Staehli, for designing the award-winning visitor centre at the Cliffs of Moher.
The council confirmed that last year, the company received €834,499 in fees for the project. Last year’s payment brings to €1.437 million the amount the company has received to date for its work on the scheme.
Another company working on the Cliffs project to scoop one of the highest amounts was Dublin-based Martello Media Ltd, receiving €579,320.
The company is developing for the visitor centre, 16 major audio visual installations that include a walk through “float off the cliff-top” virtual reality experience that caters for groups of up to 100 people.
The payments of €5.275 million represents a 11% increase on the €4.719 million paid to consultants in 2004.
Along with the consultants involved in the development of the Cliffs of Moher visitor centre, the big winners were engineering firms and architects.
The list released by the council shows that 78 firms and individuals received the €5.275 million.
The top ten firms received payments totalling €3.675 million. Along with the companies involved in the Cliffs project, Jacobs Babtie received the second highest amount at €691,953; RPC MCOS Ltd €284,896; Nolan Ryan Partnership €257,732; Brady Shipman Martin €251,816, Dermot and Sean Merry €216,763; Ove Arup & Partners €190,668, White Young Green €186,836 and Ove Arup & Partners €181,500.
Some of the region’s other top architectural firms feature in the payments. The records show that Murray O’Laoire Architects received €115,699, Byrne O’Donnell Scully Architects, €86,597; Paddy Coleman & Associates received €74,902 and Thomas McGahon architects received €55,771.