Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to co-sponsor this Bill along with my colleague, An Teachta Mairéad Farrell. It is a short and relatively simple Bill which will have far-reaching effects and will result in large savings for the public purse. Judging by reports in this weekend's Mail on Sunday, it is a very timely Bill. Apparently, a number of unforeseen delays have contributed to an increase of almost 40% in the cost of providing motorway infrastructure and the bypass of Sallins, County Kildare. The M7 widening scheme, the Sallins bypass and the Osberstown interchange, junction 9A, have cost approximately €85.5 million, an increase of nearly €24 million over the original contract figure. An Teachta Mairéad Farrell spoke about the national children's hospital. Some experts believe the final cost could be as high as €2.4 billion, an enormous 500% increase.

Successive Governments have been careless with public money by allowing such overspends to happen and this needs to change. The Bill will ensure that poor past performance in public contracts would be grounds for exclusion from participation in future tenders for procurement procedure. The current legislation governing public procurement, the European Union (Award of Public Authority Contracts) Regulations 2016, allows for bids which are considered abnormally low. An Teachta Mairéad Farrell spoke at length on this. We are asking that they be excluded from the process. However, the legislation contains the definition of what an abnormally low bid is.

The Regulation of Tenderers Bill 2021 will establish that abnormally low tender bids for capital works that have a contract equal to or above the EU threshold for public works would be regulated and disqualified if their lower level breaches a new objective base and cannot be adequately explained to the contracting authority. There are other aspects to the Bill which I will leave to my colleagues to raise given the limited time available. I commend the Bill to the House.

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