Dáil debates

Thursday, 9 December 2021

Regulation of Tenderers Bill 2021: Second Stage [Private Members]

 

4:25 pm

Photo of Réada CroninRéada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend my comrades, Deputies Mairéad Farrell and Patricia Ryan, on bringing forward this important and promising Bill which would bring a bit of transparency, accountability and accuracy to the tendering process. It would also specifically address the issues of lowball tenders and bogus self-employment within its remit. It is disappointing for the Minister of State to say that the Government is going to oppose this Bill. The Government’s record on provision in this area is nothing to boast about. He cannot stand there and tell us that everything is all right and that the Government has this issue under control. It was said that the Government has significant concerns regarding the Bill's potential impact on the ability of the State to seek value for money on all projects. I do not know what to say about that. Whoever wrote that speech for the Minister of State has some neck

These lowball tenders turn out to be wrecking balls for the taxpayer and the economy. We only have to look at the national children's hospital and the national broadband plan to see the carnage that is inflicted on the public finances. That carnage is felt in the personal lives of workers, carers and families. Every few million in cost overruns on the lowball tenders are a few million snatched away from neurology, housing, mental health, special education or from the residential respite that our carers need just to keep on living.

I had questions down to the Minister for Transport on the overruns in my constituency in Sallins in respect of the widening of a section of the N4 as my Kildare colleague, Deputy Ryan, has already noted. We are at €23 million in overruns now and counting, which is 40% of the original price. We have to look at our record here. The sum of €23 million is an awful lot of nurses in Naas General Hospital, if we are going to talk about nurses' salaries. It is an awful lot of psychologists or special education places, an awful lot of houses and an awful lot of silent nights for the families looking for respite and who are at the end of their tether.

Too often these lowball tenders are not only a false economy but also an exploitation of the public good and of the workers who are employed or, more correctly, bogusly self-employed. Bogus self-employment is a blight on our workers and our economy. It is accurately described as a corruption by the tireless campaigner and whistleblower, Martin McMahon of the Tortoise Shack podcasts. Bogus self-employment allows companies to come in low and continue acting low, in fact, to act in the lowest way possible by devouring all the benefits of profit while spitting out the workers who made it for them. By telling workers not to look to them for PRSI contributions, that the workers are on their tod and self-employed, those companies have all the rights to our public money but no responsibilities to their workers whose taxes actually fund that public purse. Alongside the exploitation of our workers by wealth funds and cuckoo funds, bogus self-employment is right up there. It is socially repulsive and perverse.

This Bill will set out to make it anything but normal for hard-working people in a modern democratic society. If a company cannot explain why it is coming in at 15% below the others, it would be "thanks but no thanks" to them, for a change. For the sake of the public and our workers and the way it should be, I challenge the Minister of State if he is saying he is going to oppose this Bill and I hope he will have a rethink.

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