Mr. John McKeon:

Certainly. As a Department, we value local employment services. I am very aware of and sensitive to the uncertainty the local employment services are currently experiencing. The situation arises on foot of legal advice the Department received several years ago from the Office of the Chief State Solicitor. That advice was subsequently confirmed by the Attorney General. We did query it. Senator Higgins previously provided material and we had that material queried as well. The clear and unambiguous legal advice is that the process that commenced more than 25 years ago of awarding annual contracts without a competitive procurement process is not compliant with EU procurement rules. In spite of what some people may think, that is not necessarily advice that we particularly welcomed, but it is the advice we received and we have to respect it and act on it. As Accounting Officer, I have to make sure I act on it because my statutory function is to try to ensure our procurement is legal. That is the background to it. I do not want to make too big a deal out of this but, even leaving aside the legal advice, renewing or rolling over contracts for 25 years without any kind of competitive process is not exactly good governance. You do get into the classic governance principle in respect of relationships. The Minister put her position on this issue on the record very clearly in the Dáil last week. Even apart from the legal advice, it is probably something we might have had to consider anyway.