Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)

The EU has stated that 25% of public procurement contracts should be awarded to small Irish business with 38% being the EU average. In the North of Ireland, Conor Murphy, MLA, stipulated that a certain number of local apprentices should be employed on such contracts and in Scotland it is stipulated that a certain amount of the contract must be sub-contracted to social enterprise. It is in the gift of the Government to decide that a certain percentage of contracts are given to SMEs. Since our percentage figure is so low as against the European average of 38%, the Government should stipulate that 40% of all public procurement contracts go to SMEs.

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