Mr. Ian Talbot:

We brought out a public paper on procurement a few months ago and we laid out a number of recommendations. We have socialised that widely. We have had several meetings with OGP. We have met officials from several Departments, including the Departments of Health and the Environment, Community and Local Government. We have met the CCMA and we have socialised the document as much as we can. We believe that some of the recommendations we have put forward have been picked up in a new circular, Circular 10/14 on public procurement, that the OGP has issued. That needs to be rolled out. Procurement managers need to be hired and trained to do it.

It is a great source of frustration to us. There are two things. It is not just that the money is leaving Ireland; there is also the issue of small businesses around the country seeing relatively small contracts, such as printer contracts for local schools, going to a big central contract. It is potentially a big issue for local authorities. A bit of reciprocity needs to go on. Small businesses are paying rates to their local councils and local councils need to put some money back into the economy as well. We need to find a balance on these things.