After 18 months and €2m, Dáil printer has yet to output a page
Oireachtas staff cannot be trained due to Covid restrictions
THE infamous €2m Dáil printer has yet to print a single page, a full 18 months after it was installed in Leinster House at great expense to the taxpayer.
An Oireachtas spokesman confirmed to the Irish Mail on Sunday that a UK-based trainer had begun training staff on how to use the machine on site before the pandemic hit.
However, the spokesman confirmed Covid-19 restrictions ‘necessarily led to the discontinuation of the on-site training by the UKbased trainer’.
They told the MoS: ‘As soon as Covid-19 restrictions enable the on-site training with the UK-based trainer to recommence, it will.’ The spokesman added that the printer will be ‘finally commissioned once the remaining training is completed’.
Controversy erupted in November 2019 after it emerged the Oireachtas had ordered a state-ofthe-art printing machine that couldn’t fit into the building.
Figures provided to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) subsequently confirmed a total of €314,453 was spent on building costs to get the printer on site. The printer itself cost €1.36m with further storage costs amounting to €14,760.
Combined with outsourcing (€100,000) and costs incurred by the Office of Public Works (€221,325), it means the cost of the printer to the taxpayer comes to a total of €2,010,538.
However, the huge high-tech machine has yet to print even a single page.
One TD who spoke to the MoS described the ill-fated machine as ‘the printing equivalent of the Marie Celeste. A ghost ship of printing. Alone, silent uninhabited and without life.’
Even with the imminent lifting of restrictions, the sceptical deputy also expressed doubts the printer would be operational any time soon.
They added: ‘I will believe it when I see it. People have been in training for shorter periods to win an All-Ireland than to press a button on a machine.’
In his report to the PAC, Dáil clerk Peter Finnegan admitted ‘mistakes’ arising from the printer project were down to ‘human error’. He said at the time: ‘They were honest mistakes and made by staff who were seeking to improve the printing services for members.’
In his report, Mr Finnegan also found the company that supplied the Komori printer had recommended a ceiling height in excess of that available in the room in its tender documents.
Even after the printer was eventually installed, further controversy erupted after it emerged Dáil staff were seeking additional payment to be trained to use the machine.
The then PAC member, Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane, said at the time: ‘It’s a printer that’s twice the size of any printer the staff have ever used before. They actually need to use a forklift in a very tight space to load up the paper.’
Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry described the saga as ‘the Children’s Hospital approach to public procurement. Let’s buy it and stuff it in. This has been a total pig’s ear’.
One TD said: ‘That printer hasn’t gone away you know. It is still just sitting there.’
They added: ‘This is the printing equivalent of O’Reilly the builder in Fawlty Towers.
‘Truly it is the white elephant of printing white elephants.’
‘All-Ireland training has been shorter than this’