Mr. John McKeon:

There has been quite extensive engagement on this with local employment services dating back to 2018 and 2019. When we received the advice we did not rush into it. We took a very slow and deliberate approach. There were three separate independent consultant reports. In all cases the consultants engaged with local employment services. The Department has had 140 separate engagements with the sector over this period, including meetings with every chief executive of every local employment service and every job club and dealings with unions. There has been quite a lot of engagement and I will detail some of it. All of the CEOs of the local development companies were briefed in 2018 on what we were doing and what had to happen. In 2019, Indecon briefed all of the local employment services and job clubs together with the Department. All of the local employment services and job clubs were visited by the Department individually in 2019. The Institute of Employment Studies consulted with all of them in 2020. The Minister and the Department meet representatives of the Irish Local Development Network regularly. With regard to the trade unions, we have had six meetings with them going back as far as 2019. On 9 November, we held a detailed briefing session on the outcome of the first phase of the tender and sought feedback on the design of the next phase. There has been quite extensive consultation. I know one of the issues, and this is not just with regard to local employment services, is that sometimes people say we were there but we did not listen to them. There is a limit to what we can change as a consequence. We have listened and we try to take on board all of the feedback we can, to the extent that we can within the law.

With regard to the Deputy's question on what would happen if we did not do it, the Government cannot knowingly break the law. I will put it that way. Once we know it we cannot unknow it. The Government could not knowingly break the law. The Government is meant to stand up and apply the law. I do not think that is an option. We would be open to suit by other potential providers. The European Commission could take enforcement proceedings of its own volition. There would be quite serious consequences.

With regard to the point made on the various pay rates, various providers and various costs, after careful deliberation we have taken an approach in our tender that the marks for price are as low as we can make them. Normally, and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform can confirm this, the marks awarded in any tender process for price are typically 40% or even higher in some cases. In the tenders we issued in the four phases where we did the first phase recruitment, price accounted for 25%. Service quality and, in particular, community and social connections accounted for the remaining 75%. A lot of the marks are awarded to recognise exactly the point the Deputy has made on the value of experience in social connections. We prize the marks towards these. Many of the providers have been described as moving towards a profit-based model. Other providers that are entitled to compete will compete, and if they get through the process they will be awarded fairly. If we think about it logically, if some providers have to add a profit margin on top of their costs while others do not so there is some equalisation there. We cannot release the report of the Institute of Employment Studies in full because it gives us its views on what appropriate costs would be. We have set a minimum price, which is very rare, below which any tender is not accepted.