Mr. Dave O'Reilly:

Deputy Anthony Lawlor asked how we could get away from aggregation and still show value for money.

If Cork County Council is purchasing equipment, it goes to tender in its local area and everybody will compete. If one allows aggregation, it is only those who pre-qualify who can tender. In certain situations there are five or seven, of whom only four might be interested. Therefore, one has only four instead of 24 competing for the business. In recent contracts there was central purchasing, but it failed to engage in a due diligence process in the case of existing equipment within the department. Currently, there are machines in councils, on which there are four years left to run on leases, and another batch of machines have been purchased centrally and they are trying to negotiate their way out of the first set of leases. They can say to members that they can show better value for money, but they forget to tell them about the second circular, Circular 16/13, and what is actually happening. They also forget to tell them that in the case of the last stationery contract awarded, there were 250 core items at ridiculously low prices and of ridiculously low quality. If one stepped one inch away from these 250 core items, one paid through the nose for them. If a lever arch file was black, it was bought at an extremely good price, but if it was blue, one paid six times more. A fortune was made out of it. There was a company in the United Kingdom which did not receive the contract but which referred to this country as Treasure Island.