John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let us say an SME wins a cleaning contract. The SME must meet certain regulations set down in the contract and separately in terms of health and safety. The SME must train its staff to a high level and then enters the tender process but the company that wins the tender takes all of the SME's staff. The SME will have spent money on training and committed itself to the tender. We must examine how an SME can win a greater number of contracts under a certain level, how they can maintain a contract for a period of two years, three years or whatever and give them an opportunity to get into that space and understand it better. SMEs have found, alongside all of the other complications within the tender process, there is the cost. Those that invest in the tender process tend to win the contracts. They may not be the best at doing the job but they are certainly the best at getting the job and that is a difficulty. I have seen too many SMEs, certainly within my own country but in my region, that have lost out not on price but on some other aspect of the tender process. There was value for money but the SME loses out because it has not reached a critical mass in terms of turnover, number of staff or whatever. One of the cases that I saw highlighted was the library service, some of the contracts have gone to the UK based companies. Many countries in Europe are structured to ensure that companies are within general EU guidelines yet they are well able to look after their own SME sector and get value for money at the same time. That is what Ireland must do. I get the value for money aspect. There is no point in creating unemployment while achieving little value for money.