Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 31 March 2022
Public Accounts Committee
2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 20 - An Garda Síochána
9:30 am
Mr. Joseph Nugent:
The primary areas of non-compliance were the areas of towing and storage contracts, uniform, equipment, PPE and that nature of material, and some issues around cleaning of stations. The primary problem in those areas has been around access to providers who were prepared to compete for the business. As to what we have done since then, we have run a series of procurements in those individual areas. In regard to the towing and storage contracts, a series of procurements are currently being evaluated and we expect to award contracts over the coming month or so. In terms of the uniform, we have awarded that and we will have a new uniform in place next month. We have taken action around these and we continue to keep matters under review.
There are areas where we face difficulties and we spoke earlier about this when it was raised. There have been challenges in parts of the country around getting access to particular providers in the medical space. That is something where we have engaged separately with the broader medical community to see how we can address and deal with those.