Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 2 March 2021
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2021
Vote 11 - Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Chief Government Information Officer (Revised)
Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source
It is the job of the Office of Government Procurement to form policies about procurement. It makes the rules about how to buy things and then issues those rules. It works with the contracting authorities to make sure the rules are feasible and workable. It gets expert advice and the contracting authorities are required by Government policy to follow those rules. However, we do not police them. We do not know that the policy was not followed, nor do we know that the policy was followed and failed. We do not know, for example, if the policy was simply ignored. We do not know what happened in this case. It is a matter for the Joint Committee on Health, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Accounting Officer of the Department of Health to answer those questions.
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