Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to focus on the procurement process. Notwithstanding what I believe to be the Minister's bona fides in seeking to get this project over the line, and I believe him to be genuine, we are getting bombarded with metrics, statistics and the use of a language that for many people who do not have broadband is indecipherable in terms of the political rhetoric around this.

The first question I have is very simple. Do EU rules on procurement allow the Minister to descope or make a tender less attractive to certain vendors, thus favouring others while the tender process is live? If SIRO has pulled out of this process, what is to stop it or any other bidder, who might not partake in this tender, from looking at the legal position and saying it signed up to a process and the Minister, the State or the Government has now made that process less attractive for it as a tenderer or bidder and why should it not take legal action to protect the investment and commitments it has made?

The public is confused and I am confused because I do not believe that the transparency and the information that we require on this is adequate at this time. I do not believe it is right for the Minister to use the cover of the fact that this is a competitive tendering process. As Deputy Dooley said, it is down to two entities at this stage. The Minister can hardly use the cover of the tendering process in the language he is using to explaining the process itself. What were the original EU rules on procurement? What was the language that was used by the State in regard to the EU so as to protect those people who have now come out of the process on the basis that the original tender is less than what was articulated and advised to them in the first instance?

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