Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Legal advice sought by the parent Department of Pobal has indicated there is no obligation on Departments to tender the contracts or arrangements made with Pobal for the management of funds, and that reflects the Teckal principle of EU procurement law, which states that open advertising and tendering rules for public contracts do not apply where a public body obtains services from in-house sources.

I want to say two things in regard to Pobal and my Department. It has provided an important, flexible and responsible service to our Department. We also plan to commission an independent review of the operating system for child care, because that is where we invest most money in terms of Pobal, and to determine whether reform is required. From a governance perspective, as the child care budget increases it would be preferable to have a closer statutory relationship with the administrator of the child care funding. That is looking to the future.

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