Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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Okay, no problem. I have a number of questions on it. To be honest, it is one of the most pressing issues of the moment. That is why I felt it was essential to raise it here. That would be my view on it.

Some quite interesting things came out of the meeting here today. Something that really interested me was how we could use procurement contracts. I cannot remember which of the witnesses mentioned it in the beginning but Mr. Madouros mentioned it later on. For example, Mr. Madouros mentioned linking them to modern methods of construction. This was in response to one of the questions based on infrastructure. It is interesting because one of the things that they were talking about is that we are not sure what will happen with tariffs. We do not know what will happen. Anybody who thinks they can predict realistically cannot and we have to prepare for all sorts of different scenarios. Taking procurement as an example, obviously the State is a huge spender within the economy, and how we can use that in terms of economic development, but also on a regional basis, is something that I am quite interested in.

Something that has concerned me over the past five years is the fact that we have no data in relation to how procurement is used and no data is published by the Office of Government Procurement, OGP. Mr. Madouros mentioned that we could potentially look at using procurement contracts and linking them to modern methods of construction. How could it be used in terms of strengthening our own local economy and particularly, as I come from the west of Ireland, on a more diverse regional basis?