Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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The chairperson of the CCPC, Ms Isolde Goggin, has discussed fears about potential rigging of public procurement contracts. She has sought a more sophisticated data system - I will come to the Department's role in a moment - to monitor for potential abuses. I understand that the CCPC is currently examining the waste and motor sectors. She outlined that the CCPC was relying on whistleblowers to detect wrongdoing. It has been estimated that wrongdoing may be adding 20% to 30% to the cost of contracts. On 14 August, she was reported as saying:

We've had various complaints over the years, and we've done various investigations, but we haven't had a successful prosecution. We need to improve the data, the evidence base for what we're looking at.

She added: "International experience would tell you that [public procurement] is something that tends to be very prone to cartel activity, and particularly to bid-rigging". I understand that she and her office have written to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to make the case for a data analytics-based system, which would make it easier to track activity. In this regard, she has stated:

At the moment in order to detect bid-rigging we'd be reliant on a whistleblower ... But we also know that the Irish State could use software a lot more cleverly than we do at the moment to kind of detect patterns like that ... [and] to look at the historical pattern"

I am not alleging wrongdoing, but the Department needs to be alert to this. When I became aware of the Spanish case, it alerted me to the situation.

Dragados, which Reuters reported was fined €57.1 million by the Spanish regulator, was awarded the New Ross N25 bypass contract, which was worth €230 million. It was also awarded the Gorey M11 contract, which was worth €350 million. From the Department's point of view, have issues arisen with any of these contracts?