Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said it is independent. We have not seen the legal advice on that. Does the Minister not think that not seeking tenders and dealing with one contractor is bad business? In 2016, €204 million was disbursed via Pobal on behalf of the Minister's Department. Even though Pobal is a State agency, it does not do this work for free and charges fees. It was paid €13.5 million in 2016 for this work. It is supposed to be a not-for-profit charity.

The EU directive states that contracts greater than €135,000 must be advertised and a competitive tendering process carried out. This has not happened. We wrote to the Charities Regulator, which said it will examine all of these bodies, including charities which are statutory bodies. Pobal obviously falls under that category.

We have examined public procurement by Departments and State agencies and the number of breaches of EU directives and guidelines is scary. Last week I raised the issue of An Garda Síochána and Accenture. Accenture was paid €26.5 million in 2016 alone and there has been no tender since 2009. The Government must be losing money by not insisting on tendering processes.

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