John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The last issue concerns matters arising from a meeting we had in January concerning the air service to the Aran Islands. We dealt with it when the Department's representatives were here. I will not get into the detail too much, but I believe there are issues arising with regard to the construction of the tender that need to be looked at, be it by the Committee of Public Accounts, the Department or the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications. This requires some scrutiny of the competence involved in the Department and the Office of Government Procurement, how those concerned actually constructed the tender and whether they took everything into consideration as they were constructing and engineering the tender process. Serious questions arise from it and we did raise the issue. Deputy Joe Costello raised the issue of landing strips, etc. It is reasonable for us to ask these questions considering what has happened.