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

The national children's hospital was initially estimated to cost €650 million but the latest estimate stands at €2.4 billion, an increase of approximately 270%. The national broadband plan, initially estimated to cost €350 million, is now estimated to cost €5.7 billion, an increase of 1,530%. Behind schedule and over cost are hallmarks of procurement failure and the OGP does not collect data on the specific reasons for cost overruns. It seems that from a public policy perspective, this kind of information would be crucial. The procurement reform board needs to get a handle on the reasons for these cost overruns.

SI 284/2016 requires contracting authorities to prepare a written report for every procurement contract and also empowers the Minister of State to request other information in the form of a statistical report. Will he commit to gathering those data, either through the procurement reform board or by asking the OGP to do it?

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