Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Obviously, 2018 expenditure would be a matter for us to examine in the context of the audit of the 2018 appropriation account. In general, if I may explain how a framework agreement works, the Office of Government Procurement or a large organisation puts a framework agreement in place. They look for contractors who are capable of providing a class of service. They pre-qualify them and put them on this framework arrangement. Normally, when an organisation then wants to avail of the framework, it will go to a number of the contractors and run what is called a mini-competition. It will state specifically what it needs and ask for prices, running a constrained competition. Some people refer to a framework agreement when what they mean is a draw-down contract, whereby there is an arrangement for a certain amount of service to be provided but where more of the service can be drawn down. The terms tend to be used interchangeably in some of the correspondence we have seen. I do want to look at this procurement in the context of the appropriation account. If there is something significant around procurement I may report on it.