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

It depends on how they have decided to set the threshold, which is a decision for each individual state. As we increase the threshold we will lose less transparency on what has been awarded. Again, this is public money. We will have less data, which I think is a con. The pro is that more Irish businesses will be successful in winning contracts.

One of the things that I really want to achieve, and a number of Deputies have raised this with me, is we want to make the market fairer. We have a situation where certain companies have sat on the same contract for many years and the contract has never been opened up to competition from local Irish companies in the region, which is unfair. We need to strike the right balance between transparency and fairness but do nothing that impacts on local SMEs winning Government business.