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

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit. I welcome the fact that the Government is having that consultation. It is welcome that we are all thinking more about this issue, whether in the context of SMEs, social enterprises, as the Minister of State outlined, councils and so on.

The EU has long been calling on member states to use the public procurement system in a more strategic way to support industrial policy objectives. Data collection oversight of our public procurement system is poor in comparison with EU peer standards. The data reports we tend to get from the Office of Government Procurement are generally two or three years out of date when they are published. If we are to better use our procurement system, the first step is to have better access to recent data in order that we can know what is happening. That must be interoperable with other public data registries. Our current system seems antiquated in that regard, particularly in comparison with the systems that obtain in other countries. I produced a Bill at the end of the previous Dáil which would begin to move us in this direction. Would the Minister of State be willing to work with me on that?

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