Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is right to cite Estonia as a model. I am meeting the ambassador, if not this week then next week, to talk about all that has been done there because people from industry cite it as best in class. The Deputy is dead right to talk about open data. I have had several conversations with the Government Chief Information Officer about what we can do with data. The communications service the Oireachtas gives to the public is very good, but the service we encounter here can be very difficult. We need to balance the two. On open data, there are some exciting forums coming up in the autumn, such as hackathons and forums for sharing data, making it more accessible and making it work better for the public and inside Government services.

The procurement question about market share is very pertinent. Although 66% of public services expenditure in 2013 went to small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, I do not have the figure for 2014. As we increase our spend, we want to ensure SMEs are accessing and winning as much as they can. The EU directive on consortium bidding was intended to make it possible for them to compete against bigger players. Anecdotally, I have heard that it has not been as successful as we had hoped. That is what I am looking into.