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

The procurement of any services by the Government and public bodies is not specified in any legislation. We do not do that as a norm. To underpin a specific element of public procurement in specific legislation could reflect on other public procurement and suggest that there is somehow an issue with the legality of it. Rather than do that, the established practice laid out under EU procurement directives is the manner in which we will pursue all procurement across the board, whether in health, education, defence, the Office of Government Procurement or local authorities. They are all laid out on the same basis.

We have received advice from the Attorney General that singling out one element could infer a question about the legality of the others which I know, of course, is not what we intend. It is on that basis that I am seeking to delete lines 21 and 22.