Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

Okay. Deputy McDonald raised the issue of a bond. I agree it is too expensive and too difficult for the small subcontractors to get one. If every subcontractor were to need a bond, the price of them would go up. There were times when subcontractors could get a fair deal on bonds which were needed for doing State work. It was an uneven game, however, and requiring them for all work is a step too far.

Procurement is a different area but needs to be examined. In Dublin city five large public private partnership projects, such as the regeneration works in Inchicore and Dominick Street, fell through with one builder. It had reached the stage that this builder was the only one who could tick all the boxes in the procurement process for the last few years of the good days. This builder got all the jobs he wanted, and more than he could do. Those five large regeneration projects fell through when the property market fell and the figures changed, resulting in the builder walking away from them. The reason he had so much on his plate was that no other builder could compete with him in tendering for all these projects as he ticked all the required boxes. The procurement system is poor and needs to be examined. I accept this may be outside of the scope of the Bill but it was raised by Deputy Calleary.

People seem to think the entire subcontracting area ran into problems because of the recession. The problems existed long before the recession. I can go back 20 years and speak about problems in the relationship between the subcontractor and the main contractor. Under no circumstances is this a new issue.

There has to be protection for suppliers, in particular the small supplier. There is no point in legislating for the large concrete suppliers which have the most clout. The small supplier has suffered the most in the past four years. It is he or she who got paid the least from the contractors when the trouble arrived.

Deputy Donnelly raised the issue of whether a concrete cartel exists. If anyone is wondering if there ever was a concrete cartel in this country, he or she can take my word for it there was. I could not break it and I used to deal with many different concrete suppliers. Were they doing business together? They sure were. No one had the power to break them. Anyone in the industry is familiar with the concrete cartel, and it is a difficult issue to tackle.

The issue of contractors getting jobs from local authorities but not being able to finish work, resulting in subcontractors failing to get paid off for State projects was raised. It is a known fact that not all local authorities have behaved in an honest fashion. I have said previously that I found Dublin City Council to be honest and I was treated fairly by it. Around the country, however, it is not always so clean and upfront. Most of the time builders got work from local authorities through power, influence and contacts. The relationship between Fianna Fáil, which has ruled the country most of my life, and the building industry has left much to be desired. This has led to many problems in cases where contractors got work from local authorities when they should not have. A lot of underhanded stuff went on.

The need to address the wider issue of local government, which I hope the Government will do, will capture some of the problems in this area which is seriously entrenched in the way local government operates. For all practical purposes, as Members know, we have no local government in this country when compared to the European model, aside from the fact local government here gets only 20% of the average funding a local government in Europe gets, the people elected to local government are not put in positions of decision-making, leading to more problems, and it is run by an executive. Who gets the county manger's job and how he or she gets it determines many other matters further down the tracks. I hope the Government will address this wider issue.

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, for his patience. I look forward seeing how the Bill transpires; it is certainly a good development.

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