Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)

I agree data is an issue. We need to have better data to be able to oversee in a better way. Data is something that is very much looked at from an EU directive perspective. It is something that is going to be featuring very strongly in this Government's first ever national public procurement strategy. We want to get to a point where we have better visibility. From the perspective of controls within the budget, the OGP provides extensive guidance in circulars on what levels and thresholds should operate, mini competitions, bigger tenders and so on. Sometimes issues arise when a tender starts out small but additional requirements were added later. That increases the budget but that is not best practice and that is not what we advise. We have a lot of information and do a lot of work with other Departments in this space. Ultimately, other Departments and State agencies are their own accounting bodies. It is not the OGP that is responsible for their budgets. They are responsible for their own budget but we can advise them on how to get the best value for money for the taxpayer. Our sourcing teams do that. The Cathaoirleach mentioned the amount of money being spent on public procurement. Money is also spent through our sourcing teams on delivering direct drawdowns, where tenders already exist and preferred suppliers have already been identified. That is a great value for money proposition and I would encourage other central Government bodies that purchase to look at those CBO arrangements because they really do deliver good value for money.