Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have taken a whole range of initiatives and are more proactive than ever before in terms of enabling SMEs to become involved in public contracts. We have a public contract website and are showing people how to operate and access it. We are conducting meet-the-buyer workshops so that people can see how to access small and large contracts, how to network with others and submit joint bids, and we are breaking down contracts in many instances so that people can bid on a subset of them.