Kevin Moran (Longford-Westmeath, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the committee for the time afforded to my officials and me to provide the additional detail on the papal visit, as requested last week.

My attendance at this committee as Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform with special responsibility for the Office of Public Works and flood relief is to propose a net Supplementary Estimate of €20 million. This is to cover costs incurred by the OPW for the papal visit and an estimated additional spend of €4 million on new works, alterations and additions for a number of projects including emergency work, ancillary works on energy retrofit projects, lift replacement programme, work on Leinster House and the Department of Justice and Equality rationalisation programme.

The main part of this Supplementary Estimate, at €18 million, relates to costs of the work undertaken by the OPW on the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland. On request from the Taoiseach's office earlier this year, the OPW fully committed to providing its resources to plan and assist in organising this event. However, it should be noted that there were no funds allocated to the OPW within its 2018 Estimate for an event of this magnitude. There was an understanding that additional funds would be provided on completion of the work by the OPW and I am here to request that the committee approves this Supplementary Estimate.

A number of queries arose at the last meeting regarding the procurement of goods and services for this event. The first aspect that needs to be acknowledged is the extremely short timeframe from the date the Department of the Taoiseach requested the OPW to plan for this event to the actual date of the papal visit. Hence, the OPW used a combination of tendering competitions where possible and existing multi-year frameworks for a number of contracts that had been put in place, together with the Office of Government Procurement for the decade of centenaries. All suppliers on the existing framework had successfully been through the rigours of a public request for tender process and have to date fulfilled all obligations as laid out in their respective contracts.

At the last committee meeting, Deputies were very considerate and complimentary of the excellent work carried out by the OPW on this event.  I would like to reiterate my thanks for the hard work the OPW put into ensuring that this event was carried out in a highly professional and effective manner. To put into perspective the magnitude of the event, it was viewed by 1.1 million viewers from 159 countries, with 1,200 journalists from 31 countries accredited for the event.  We, as Deputies, and our colleagues in government can be proud of how Ireland was portrayed nationally and internationally by this event. Hence, it is my opinion that we should support

Before I conclude, I remind members that the OPW is consistently available to Government to respond to these large-scale infrastructural projects and will do everything in its power to obtain value for money in carrying out its function, which is a very wide remit spanning from flood risk to estate and heritage management. I am happy to recommend this Supplementary Estimate for approval by the committee and to answer any questions that may arise. We circulated answers to the questions put to us last week. I have also circulated the figures required by the committee. I am happy to take questions relating to that.