Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Fleming is right in saying there is a problem. I want to be up-front and admit there is an issue here largely driven by the fact that there is such competition for construction contracts because the price has come down substantially. If one speaks to the Minister for Education and Skills, he will tell one that on average, there has been a reduction of between 30% and 40% on what we are spending now for the unit cost of primary schools vis-à-vis what was the case at the height of the boom. With that reduction and the extraordinary value we are getting now, there is obvious competition for that work from those who remain in business. The excessive profits are not there anymore and people are litigious and look at every aspect of the contract to make sure that it is delivered as stated in the contract and there is nothing above and beyond it.

There are two fundamental issues feeding their way back into public contracts and the Chairman is right in highlighting that. It is an issue in my own Department regarding the Office of Public Works. I know it from the flooding issue where we give out a major contract of €2 million, €3 million, €4 million and sometimes €7 million to main contractors. One needs to keep a close eye on everything that is going on because the profits in the industry are not as high as they were in the past. We are getting more value and much greater bang for our buck even though the amount we are spending has come down. We are spending €17 billion over a five-year period. We are getting much greater value because of the competition that is there.

I understand that Deputy Fleming is trying to address a problem with his amendment but I do not believe this is the place to address it. When I read the amendment again, I saw the reference to the period of time when this information would be published and an invitation to interested parties to submit their views. Who are interested parties? In most cases, it is the competition because there is a standstill period of between 14 to 16 days under EU procurement law. In the great majority of cases, it is the person who has not got the contract who is the interested party. To whom is Deputy Fleming referring in respect of interested parties because that happens anyway?

What Deputy Fleming is trying to address - it is a real issue - is a pre-tendering stage where any good public procurement individual or group of individuals really needs to know who they are dealing with. This refers to the point made by Deputy Donnelly. The pre-tendering stage is when all the work should be done to assess difficulties with other tasks that may have been there in the past. That would be a major problem with this amendment. Who are interested parties?

Second, one is trying to get a piece of work done. This extends the period of time by opening up this new opportunity. I know the recent case in west Limerick which has been referred to where the person would not pay up but it was not as a result of insolvency. It was just that he would not pay up because of the existing contract. There is a wider problem here which we are looking at.

There has been progress in recent years on public procurement generally in these contract areas. I take Deputy Donnelly's point about PPPs. We had some spectaculars in this area in the past decade and a half but there has been very little PPP activity in the past number of years because no one was prepared to invest in the country. I recently spoke at a conference at the National Convention Centre. There is substantial interest again. The new areas where we will be engaging in PPPs are, if I can be very blunt about it the bog standard stuff - schools, primary health care centres and Garda stations. They will be not be trophy projects delivered in certain constituencies with all kinds of fanfare. That day is over. It is the kind of activity we need to keep the public administration system together. There is significant interest in Ireland because of the improvement in many areas. As I continually say, if one makes the sovereign look less risky, people are prepared to invest in the country again. So there is interest again and we are heavily involved in that aspect.

The Deputy is right. The level of supervision in the past and the way these contracts were handled was appalling. That will be helped by the fact that we are centralising public procurement, as the Deputy is aware. We have a new office located within but independent of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, if that is not a contradiction in terms. Someone from outside is running public procurement. Due to the fact that we are getting value because the money is not there and so many more parties are competing for this work, we must monitor those very closely. Monitoring the contract is everything because it is at that stage that things can deteriorate. The day of these large-scale trophy projects around the country is over.