Mr. John Barry:

On the procurement rules and the continuation or the development of a supply base, when we were creating the frameworks and so on, the continuation of the existing supply base was uppermost in our minds. We carried out a number of competitions to put people onto different framework contracts, such as the one mentioned by the Deputy, as well as others pertaining to chemicals, repair and maintenance and CCTV and sewer jetting. People submitted their applications to go on those frameworks and if one takes the totality of those companies which were invited and the numbers of tenders received, we had a success rate of approximately 80%. However, on the point mentioned by the Deputy, we received communications back from the existing supply base to the effect that they could not get on or whatever. We found in the first instance that it was very difficult to contact some of the suppliers and, second, when we put them through the assessment they were failing on some health and safety regulations. Bearing that in mind, we put in place a particular health and safety specialist to assist them with their documentation to get them onto the frameworks. Thereafter, we wrote to the local authorities stating that if an entity had a contract with the local authority, either formal or informal, we would honour that contract if we could see the paperwork or if we received verbal notification from the local authority that it existed. We stated that as long as a supplier passed the minimum health and safety requirements, we were happy to allow that supplier to continue to do business with the local authority, which could then draw down that service as required. This has proved to be quite successful, but ultimately we seek to reach a point at which we have a competitive supply base with frameworks in place from which Irish Water and the local authorities can draw down for the services they require.

For example, we have 6,000 or 7,000 suppliers. Recently we wrote to 3,000 of them asking them if they wanted to get on the supply base or the framework and we received a response from 10% of them. They are either not interested or they are not contactable. I assure the Deputy that we have made every effort. In some cases we have gone back to people three or four times to see if they want to be included in the supply base bearing in mind that we were conscious that we wanted continuity in the supply base, which is equally important for continuity of service.