Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of monitoring and intervention of the structures and guidelines that the Department has put in place, we have begun to talk about procurement issues and we know that there are very rigid procedures in place for procurement practices. In fact, many of us would have issues pertaining to the rigour involved in some of those practices and the disadvantage that they put smaller local companies at in terms of the wider scale. This issue is especially important in the year that we are in because of the need to bypass competitive processes as a result of urgent need. Yesterday, we met officials from the Department of Education and we had a bit of a conversation about that. What role does the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform have in ensuring that best practice is employed when non-competitive processes need to be deployed by Departments?