Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming in to brief us today. It is interesting that one of the core parts of this is the public procurement package. The OPW is coming before the committee next week to discuss public procurement, particularly in view of the fact someone has been appointed to take overall responsibility for procurement at Government level.

My main concern with regard to public procurement is the decision that will be made in Europe on this and how that will be implemented here. We have a history of taking every word literally and of dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's, but we need more flexibility. The IPA published a paper recently on Kilkenny County Council, which took more into consideration than the price in procurement. It considered the social aspect, the local aspect and the service provided by the people who would get the contract. The Minister must be conscious when making points in regard to public procurement, that we should take into consideration the route we need to take in that regard. The Minister mentioned earlier that we are very good at acquiring funding for SMEs, but they seem to be excluded when it comes to public procurement. Another key issue concerns the definition of an SME. When we listen to the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, he seems to talk about an SME as a company with 50 or more employees. However, the majority of us would see an SME as a company with approximately ten employees.

I have a question with regard to Horizon 2020 and how the budget for that impacts on other budgets. I refer specifically to a meeting held last week with a number of MEPs on the issue of the budget available for innovation and research and the agricultural budget and of how these could be better linked so that we do not get a serious deterioration in the agricultural budget in the multiannual framework. Someone mentioned earlier that agriculture has gone from being mainly concentrated on agriculture to being a food industry. This should be borne in mind in the negotiations on the multiannual framework budget. Horizon 2020 should link into the agriculture sector.