Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Downes for his presentation and for coming before the committee. I am a new member of this committee, unlike the previous Deputy who was speaking about the developments within equality budgeting. I have a question on that. I can see from Mr. Downes's presentation and the report that it is something which is being focused on. On some of the shortcomings highlighted by the OECD in its recent report, it stated that when it comes to equality budgeting that:

... there is no overarching strategy or set of goals in Ireland. This makes it difficult to judge the extent to which equality goals currently being set by departments are in line with real needs or are sufficiently ambitious.

It further noted that:

... equality budgeting is not obligatory; departments have limited incentive or capacity to participate, and they are unclear of the ultimate goal of the initiative.

That all sounds very negative and I had started off today thinking I would be very positive. I do not mean this to be negative, I am just reading out what the report stated.

We know a huge amount of money is spent annually on public procurement. Can this spending be challenged in such a way as to achieve social and environmental objectives through the inclusion of social clauses in contracts? Does Mr. Downes see a greater role for progressive public procurement in equality budgeting? Does he envisage it being reported on in future public service performance reports? Going back to my starting point, it is positive to see this and I would like to hear Mr. Downes’s reaction to my comments.