Mr. John McKeon:

The EU procurement directive came in in 2014. The issue arose when the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme, SICAP, was tendered for in 2014, as the Deputy may recall. Shortly after that, the Chief State Solicitor’s office identified that the services that we were providing for local employment services and job clubs seemed to meet the criteria that they should be tendered for as well. We had an engagement with the Chief State Solicitor’s office at that stage and subsequently with the Attorney General’s office, which confirmed that position. We then set about a process of rectifying the situation which involved two and a half to three years of consultations before we went ahead.