Mr. Robert Watt:

We hear this and we try to respond by providing supports and information and working with Enterprise Ireland and other bodies in terms of facilitating the access of SMEs to contracts. Within the circulars that we set out, we encourage the breaking up of contracts into lots, where that makes sense, and to have different framework contracts to accommodate that. The analysis that Mr. Quinn and his team did, which we discussed the last time we were here, shows that 66% of the spend goes to SMEs, which is significant.

There is a lot of procurement we do where the only providers are large entities. If one thinks about, for example, the procurement of drugs, the companies involved are large and are not SMEs. However, for the spend which is relevant here, SMEs are accessing a considerable amount. During the process of reform, contracts that have been in place for a long period of time may be re-examined and changed, and companies may lose contracts or feel they have lost out. There is always going to be kickback and issues arising from that. We are very cognisant of that and we receive such feedback all of the time, as do Ministers.

The overall mandate is to operate a more efficient and professional service. There was a lot of unhappiness in the past with the way procurement was done. The Comptroller and Auditor General and others have completed many reports on procurement which found problems with non-compliance, value for money and a variety of other issues. Of course, there are still issues now and the system will never be perfect. However, we are happy that the journey we are on now is to professionalise a really core function, to make it much more commercially focused and to address a variety of issues that existed in the past. Already we are seeing very significant savings. We have saved over €100 million to date and we have just started the process. We have ambitious targets to save up to €500 million over time on procurement-----