Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2016
Vote 11 (Department of Public Expenditure and Reform) (Revised)
Vote 12 (Superannuation and Retired Allowances) (Revised)
Vote 14 (State Laboratory) (Revised)
Vote 15 (Secret Service) (Revised)
Vote 17 (Public Appointments Service) (Revised)
Vote 18 (Shared Services) (Revised)
Vote 19 (Office of the Ombudsman) (Revised)
Vote 39 (Office of Government Procurement) (Revised)
9:00 am
Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source
A criticism that has come back to me is that we are over-interpreting EU directives. I want to examine whether this is the case. A good recent EU directive is the 2014 directive on procurement, which is aimed at small and medium enterprises, so it opened the door for consortium bidding and also lotting. I have heard anecdotally that lotting is being taken up but consortium bidding is not, perhaps for the reasons the Chairman suggested. I hope to go to Kilkenny in September as I have been invited, as the Minister with responsibility for procurement, to meet small businesses to hear their concerns. I will keep the Chairman fully informed of that visit. We are trying to continuously improve what we are offering to Irish businesses, so I need to know the facts from the ground.
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