Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

During an emergency, the normal procurement rules do not apply. One does try to get the best value for money but does not have to go through the full formal process. That makes sense. If one is in the middle of a pandemic and lives are at stake, one obviously has to act at speed and get the best price one can. For the Cathaoirleach's information, the leasing and acquisition of property is specifically excluded from the European procurement rules. It is not generally included. What was involved in accommodation is more than just getting property. It is generally about a whole managed service, including providing food, security, cleaning and so on. Those kinds of contracts involve acquiring a whole service. There is a similarity with the way that Citywest Hotel was used at one point to isolate people during the pandemic. Later on, it was used to accommodate asylum seekers. There was an emergency phase to the procurement that took place during the pandemic, which was then declared over by the Cabinet decision to remind people that they had to go through the proper procedures once the pandemic emergency phase had passed.

Similarly, with asylum seekers, we are now two years into the war. The number of people arriving has gone down a lot. It is time to make sure that we are getting good value for money and that we move out of an emergency phase of procurement. The State has done that because there was a recent Government decision that the State would move more directly to the construction of properties rather than leaving it to the private sector to carry out.