Professor Patrick O'Shea:

The university obviously strives to achieve value and competitive pricing in all its activity. We are the only university in the country with ISO 9001 certification for procurement. That indicates we are totally compliant with EU directives. Although we are compliant with these directives, the audit identifies approximately 1.25% - pertaining to 35 suppliers and a value of €4.4 million - that was viewed as being non-compliant with the guidelines. We can explain that. One item was related to co-funding of sectoral purchasing arrangements. The university is a partner to another lead entity, which itself procured the service in a fully compliant manner. The university, through clerical error, inadvertently identified that as being non-compliant when in fact it was. That information has been shared with the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Additionally, there are extensions of service contracts, particularly related to ICT matters, that were originally awarded competitively but where the competitive contract has expired. We have not been able to re-compete them because we are working on the basis of a shared-services model with the HEA. That is still in operation so we have to continue with the existing contracts until there is agreement from the HEA as to which types of contracts and vendors we should opt for.

There is also emergency expenditure. I refer to priority issues related to blocked drains, safety issues and so on in respect of which we have an emergency arrangement to procure services on a short-term basis. The university endeavours at all times to ensure it is compliant with public procurement policy. It engages with the Office of Government Procurement, where appropriate. My colleague-----