John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have a final question about the national procurement office which is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. I refer to the question of value for money, quality and business methods.

What might the Office of Government Procurement do to enhance the opportunity for SMEs to compete? One must take into account economies of scale and so on. We are increasingly seeing a centralisation of operations in the grocery sector. There are no longer delivery vans going to different towns, because it is all about centralised distribution in the retail market. The whole thing is gone in the direction of automated ordering, with no sales representatives on the road. That is the shift we are seeing. While it would be lovely to have more individual small suppliers, the marketplace has shifted dramatically around all of that. How can we beat this change?