Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response. One of his areas of responsibility is expenditure and its management and oversight. One of the issues arising in Covid-19, in particular, is the issue of procurement of supply chains. We have had to run to China and spend inordinate amounts of money to try to secure the supply of PPE, when in fact there are a number of companies in this country which could provide that. It is time for HSE procurement to take a very different view on this. The private hospitals deal done recently excluded doctors with private patients and ultimately reduced the amount of capacity we are able to secure. These are things I would like to see the Minister’s Department taking some leadership on.

There is also the question of indigenous manufacturing. The Minister is quite right in that his Department is supporting employment, the pandemic unemployment payments and the wage subsidy schemes but what we actually need is procurement into the end SME sector as well.

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