John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann shall consider the Report of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach entitled ‘Report on Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for Public Sector Infrastructure Projects - Liquidation of the Carillion Group’, copies of which were laid before Dáil Éireann on 22nd October, 2018.

As the Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, who is present, is aware, the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach did considerable work on this issue. In my constituency, school building programmes in County Carlow were affected. A significant number of the contractors were based around that area. When the difficulties began and came to light, a number of subcontractors from around the country contacted members of the committee and asked whether it would investigate the matter and try to protect the services and goods the subcontractors had provided to Carillion.

Before the financial crash, subcontractors were regularly caught out by big contractors such as Carillion and often went broke thereafter. Some of the contractors to which I refer are family-run businesses that have been in existence for generations and provide services or goods. When the public private partnership contract came along, the presumption was that greater guidelines and safety would be built into the contract and would extend to covering the subcontractors in question. I am aware that during the contract phase there were checks on the contractor to ensure that payments were being made and were up to date. When the crash happened, it became clear that the payments were not up to date. Subcontractors providing plastering or painting services, as well as those providing school furniture, for example, were caught and they and their businesses took a substantial hit with a resultant impact on the employment levels in those businesses. I would have thought that since these events occurred and, indeed, since the publication of this report which has 19 recommendations, one of which is that the report and the matters raised therein should be debated in the House, there would have been some progress in informing the committee on the action of the Department or Departments regarding the procurement process in order to safeguard future contracts and subcontractors.

The evidence is that large companies outbid everyone else and get the contracts and that there is not enough scrutiny of their financial affairs. An examination of the balance sheets of the companies in question would have shown suspect figures, and that should have come to light. I would have believed, in the context of Carillion, that this would have happened, particularly in view of the scale of the collapse.

On how many of the 19 recommendations is the Government going to act? In response to the committee's report, what action is the Department taking, in the context of the procurement process, to safeguard contracts by vetting the winners to the greatest extent possible, secure in the belief that they will carry out the work from start to finish?

The issue of subcontractors also arises. Considering that a €14 million fund was mentioned, we recommend in the report that the subcontractors be paid. There was quite a hullabaloo at the time, both in the media and at the committee, because we heard from the subcontractors. There was pressure put on for them to be paid part, if not all, of the moneys due. That did not happen. If we are to instil confidence in the sector and the PPP process, we have to take steps to earn the confidence of subcontractors throughout the country and ensure that the State's position is understood. I do not get that sense today.

Subcontractors remain concerned. The subcontractors involved with Carillion and Sammon have still not been paid in the way they should have been. To witness railings being taken down and moved away and subcontractors turning up at the gates of schools to take back the desks at which the children were to sit tells its own story. The Government cannot stand by and just watch that happen. It is damaging the very sector we are relying on to continue to create jobs and that created 1 million jobs in the past. I want to know the safety arrangements in the context of protecting the subcontractors. What did the Government do with the set of subcontractors involved before? Was payment made? What will be done about the big firms that win the contracts in the context of how they are paid and how they pay subcontractors? I hope the Minister of State will put in place a response to each of the recommendations and that the appropriate action will be taken to protect the individual subcontractors who were left skint as a result of the collapse.

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