Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The total volume of goods or services that were obtained outside of a contract or normal procurement rules is known by each of the contracting authorities. The OGP does not keep track of each individual procurement contract that is taken out. Even in the case where an emergency procurement is done because the contracting authority is in an emergency situation, they are still required to audit all of those procurement activities. The Accounting Officer is still required to account for all of them and the Comptroller and Auditor General can investigate all of them.

The Deputy is absolutely right to be concerned about the probity of public expenditure to make sure that money is not misspent. That certainly applies. In an emergency situation, however, the normal checks and balances that take place initially can be delayed or circumvented to deal with a critical situation. Overall, I believe that it worked remarkably well last summer. Many organisations contacted the OGP and the State to offer to the HSE equipment and PPE at no cost or at a reduced cost. The OGP worked to take all of those offers and to go through them all. It was extremely helpful. Overall, I feel that we had a successful emergency procurement. There certainly will be instances where things went wrong, and these must be investigated. We must find out what happened in those cases and they should be audited. If there was any wrongdoing, of course that should be punished. We need an emergency procurement system for emergency situations. I hope and expect that any questions arising from the HSE's purchasing are carefully examined at the health committee.