Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We support the Bill. I am taking the middle ground on this one because the Minister of State's response has been quite generous in that he seeks to consult the proposer of the Bill, particularly around the area of the social clauses. When one looks at section 4 of the Bill, there are legitimate questions as to how one would define a social clause and I take the Minister of State's critique of section 4 in regard to the community benefits. I have a question as to whether one can define a social clause in a legally definitive way. I look at community benefit from the point of view of smaller local contracts. Taking the Scottish example, a route 1 example is of relatively low value, low risk and non-repetitive while a route 2 example is between £50,000 and the EU upper tier. It is important that if one can define or create an atmosphere that ensures that where an entity is going to tender for a project, where possible it would seek to meet the needs of the community benefit requirements around training and recruitment, the availability of subcontracting opportunities, the facilitation of involvement of SMEs and the promotion of innovation and youth unemployment.

I understand what the Minister of State is saying when asks how prescriptive are we going to be and if we are to bring it down to a geographical area, using the example of Dublin 3. Is there a compromise somewhere in between that allows us to have robust legislation that stands up to scrutiny down the line, that speaks to the spirit of the legislation I spoke of and that ensures that as many local people as possible can bid for local contracts, thereby maintaining regional, local economic growth.

The Minister of State referred specifically to the devolved grants scheme. I contend that the devolved grants scheme as it relates to the schools building programme is largely a good scheme, and we oversaw that during the lifetime of the last Government, where we gave either educational and training boards, ETBs, or individual schools a degree of autonomy over building projects. However, in one instance, I witnessed a scenario where smaller subcontractors under those schemes were left high and dry having completed works, and they had no recourse to law or to the originators of the scheme, that is, the schools boards, and this represented a serious flaw in that scheme. I can see the merit of using the devolved schools programme as a pilot project administered by the National Development Finance Agency. The projects were worth approximately €70 million in total, but threw up some exceptions around subcontractors which were stiffed when it came to getting paid for work that they had carried out and very good legitimate companies in that context.

The Minister of State has offered a degree of consultation and he has said that a copy of the Bill has been forwarded to the Office of the Attorney General with a request for views on the text to see if it complies with EU directives and treaty principles. That is worthwhile and we would agree with it. I hope that consultation could be widened if possible.

I commend the Minister of State for his public engagement on the issue of public procurement. He has travelled throughout the county to engage with businesses and the SME sector. I believe him to be genuine in that endeavour. I hope the feedback from that community will find its way into a framework that ensures the local businesses that sustain our communities, including intergenerational family-owned businesses which are competing on these tenders, will feel they have a shot at tendering for public services and do not feel sidelined because they are not operating at the right types of economies of scale or they do not have the right kind of in-house tendering capacity. We need to ensure they do not have to expend too much of their resources when it comes to tendering particularly for smaller projects within the overall procurement offering.

Perhaps when the Bill goes to its next Stage the Minister of State will provide a critique or give us his opinion on the Scottish model of procurement, which was referenced by Deputy Dara Calleary. It has three particular routes. It has gained momentum and is used as an example. Obviously, Ireland is a similar country and perhaps it could be used as a potential model. I will leave it to the Minister of State to respond to that in due course.

I am hopeful the Minister of State might come back to us on whether it is possible to provide a robust legal definition of social clauses. The Minister of State has already critiqued section 4 of the Bill. There is nothing in section 4 that is objectionable in trying to get the best of the procurement process back into the communities that we serve. If the Bill intends to improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of communities, it is not bad. I am sure there can be a meeting of minds and compromise on the legislation. We support the legislation and look forward to the Minister of State's response.

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