Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 22:

In page 37, to delete lines 21 and 22.

Amendment No. 22 removes the provision in section 46(6) that any contracts the data-sharing and governance board enters into in respect of consultancy shall be subject to public competition. This was an amendment to section 46 which was tabled and accepted in the Seanad. The Office of the Attorney General has since advised that it has significant issues with the provision. Public procurement law applies across the board to all public bodies and it is not the norm to specify in legislation that it applies to a particular body or type of contract. The Attorney General has advised that the inclusion of this provision could call into question whether procurement law applies to some bodies but not others. I know that would not be the intention of anybody here. We cannot have that situation so the provision must be deleted. I reassure the committee that the laws of public procurement apply to the data governance board in the same way that all the laws of the land would apply to such a body.

Amendment No. 23 is a technical amendment to section 47(6) concerning membership of the data governance board, to add the word "persons", which was inadvertently omitted from the text.