Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not think it is appropriate for me to comment on an individual case but I have engaged with Deputy Scanlon on particular issues before, as has the Office of Government Procurement. To make a general point on school buildings and similar matters, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, have answered questions here before on a recent collapse. The National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, and the Department of Education and Skills are working on this. It affects my constituency as well. They are trying to work through this with agencies like education and training bodies across the country. It is not something that can be unravelled easily.

To get back to Deputy Boyd Barrett's point, I already referenced the EU rules that are there. There are mandatory exclusion rules and I can provide a copy of them to the Deputy. There are also discretionary rules where previous performance can be used. As I said earlier, it has to be proven. That has to be worked out by the contracting authority. In this case, the contracting authority who be whoever commissioned the development of the school. The Office of Government Procurement does not run and operate individual contracts, as Deputy Boyd Barrett will appreciate. We set out the policies in which each of the contracting authorities have to operate within and their Accounting Officers are then held accountable to the Oireachtas via the Comptroller and Auditor General. There are procedures within the statutory instruments that are in place for those exclusions and if people believe that unsatisfactory work has been done, then the contracting authority can move to have those people excluded from future rounds.

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