Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy knows it is not the role of individual Ministers to get involved in determining who gets what work within the State. It is the role of independent authorities to determine the successful applicants in the bidding process and to decide who is best able to carry out the work. If I was determining who gets what work in this State, work that is often very valuable, Deputy Doherty knows it would create a whole other set of challenges and difficulties of which he would be rightly critical. In my answer to Deputy Cowen earlier I said we are examining if it is possible to make a broader assessment of whether work carried out by a company would influence other work it might get in the future. At all times, we must be mindful that companies might have difficulties with one project but might be successful in delivering many others. My recollection of the great difficulties that happened with school projects and school buildings earlier this year is that the Minister for Education and Skills and his Department went to great lengths to ensure the taxpayer was protected in dealing with the issues identified.

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