John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I asked for a departmental note on this matter. There are issues arising with regard to the Office of Government Procurement in particular and to the construction of the tender. We are back into the same territory we were in that only a one year extension is being granted, such that a new tender will have to be drawn up and so on. In my opinion, the Office of Government Procurement did not do its job properly, given one of the people who applied for the contract did not even have a licence to operate Galway Airport. That is a very basic mistake. The committee has already dealt with this matter in the context of the amount of money involved. However, I believe it is within the remit of the committee to ask the Department and Office of Government Procurement to appear before it to answer questions in regard to the construction of the tender that is to be re-issued within a short time.

The people in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and other aviation entities in this country to whom I have spoken about this issue are incredulous with regard to how this could have happened and at the number of basic mistakes made by not only the Office of Government Procurement but the Department. The committee should do more than just note this correspondence. I acknowledge we are nearing the end of the current Administration but I think we should ask officials from the Department to appear before us to deal with this issue.