Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegation for appearing before the committee. My first question is to Dr. Davis. With regard to our nearest neighbours, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, how do the policies there relate to our policies? Does he see differences and how does he see us going in the future in terms of community benefits? My next question is for Mr. Quinn. In Circular 10/14, that reminds me of the Battle of Clontarf when we kicked out someone to get in something else - he mentioned a geographic basis. Perhaps he can provide more details on it? How does he expect it to work and what percentage of the contracts will be based on a geographical basis? He mentioned Scotland as having 20% under a collaborative centralised model. What percentage would he envisage for Ireland compared to Scotland? I am concerned about Belfast. In recent years there have been meet-the-buyer meetings in Belfast.

I do not see any for Cork, Limerick, Galway or Athlone. I am finding it difficult to comprehend why we should be actively looking for procurers outside the State. When money is being generated within this country we should be trying our best to keep it here.

Do the Northern Ireland and UK procurement offices have meet-the-buyer groups in Dublin? Does any other European network have one there? Why are we doing that? Mr. Quinn mentioned consortiums and that the OGP is looking at things like that at the moment. Is it not a bit late? We have brought in the policy. We are looking at trying to solve the problem but the horse has bolted. This has allowed the bigger companies to gain a foothold so the micro companies about which most of us are concerned have no chance whatsoever of gaining back that ground.

Dr. Davis had some research done on the UK and threw out some interesting figures. Are we going to be doing the research on the impact of procurement at local level? Is there ever going to be some sort of a way for us to measure the savings that will be made as a result of this policy change?