Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not believe anyone would argue that we do not need public procurement guidelines. The Minister of State did not really answer my question on whether there were purchases that we are not aware of. He said 80% of the equipment was to standard but that still implies a significant risk. I am aware that we went outside the normal competitive process and used negotiated procedure but there were clearly huge risks and issues over substandard or totally faulty equipment. A recent study by the World Bank ranked countries' approaches to procurement across a range of factors, including regulation. We did not score well in that regard; in fact, we scored quite poorly. I am interested in having an answer to my first question. Second, what does the reform board plan to do in respect of regulation?

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