Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

They are appearing before us. The office liaises with all the Departments and all the procurement agencies. It is surely the body that should be insisting on best practice. If the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sets a procurement threshold of €25,000 according to best practice, surely the Office of Government Procurement has a major role to play to ensure all the entities under its remit adhere to the standard procurement threshold. When its representatives come in here, we should tease out with them whether what is occurring is the norm, why UCD is not adhering the norm and why they are not policing the threshold to ensure UCD adheres to the standard? We are talking about almost €5 million in public moneys - a settlement of €2.28 million and €2.26 million of flawed procurement.