Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 10 July 2025
Public Accounts Committee
2023 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 11 - Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement
Vote 43 - Office of the Government Chief Information Officer
Chapter 3 - Vote accounting and budget management
2:00 am
Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
I ask the Department to put in place the mechanisms to make sure that does not happen.
I have worked in the procurement space. I always thought that public procurement was supposed to drive transparency, efficiency and competition and get value for money. However, we only have to look at the OPW issues. Anecdotally I have heard of a case recently on an OPW estate involving a new small kitchen. They could have walked down the road to any of the kitchen providers and it would have cost €20,000. The OPW came back and told them it was going to be €120,000. That is six times more. Instead of public procurement driving value, it is driving up the cost.
We have to do better. How fit for purpose are the public procurement processes and frameworks, and the legal frameworks agreements? Are refunds and service credits being put in place? One of the witnesses we had before the committee told us they were not allowed include penalties for non-service delivery. That individual pointed to Mr. O'Sullivan's office to say that was the case.
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