Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State's colleague and my constituency colleague, the Minister of State, Emer Higgins, said a while back that efficient use of public resources contributes to better delivery of services for our citizens. Obviously, the Minister of State present cannot disagree with that. It makes a lot of sense. The Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, mentioned she had launched a public consultation in March to ensure all those with an interest in the future direction of public procurement have an opportunity to inform the strategy. The consultation included an online survey and there was a lot of talk about three regional roadshows. I am not here to just criticise the Government, throw stones and make points. I am looking for some constructive engagement. We have a lot of small businesses, start-ups and public buyers from all sectors, and anything that makes the process easier is a good idea.

A lot of the talk about procurement, and when I talk about public procurement, I am obviously talking about the State but equally about local authorities, and a lot of the stuff that is always in the news is the likes of the children's hospital, which has consistently gone over budget, has been delayed time and again and goes on and on. However, multiply that one hundredfold in terms of all the little, or not so little, projects around the country that have either run up huge costs, not been delivered properly, or not been delivered on time.

When we are looking at the Government's national procurement strategy, and I acknowledge the European Union legislation on tenders comes in to play here as well, and we have an input into that, we need to get a lot tighter on ensuring the dodgy companies do not get the tenders in the first place. If we take the likes of BAM, for example, it was in the news in the UK and Ireland before for failures with the concrete used in school buildings, but I never saw a penalty clause enacted so that companies like this would find it more difficult or would be barred for a period from putting their names forward for contracts. Surely if a company has tarnished its reputation, it should be put on the sideline and given a yellow card or a red card.

In that context, I note the Construction Industry Federation has been charged with moving the procurement thing along. Last November, it produced its strategy document for the improved delivery of public infrastructure, Fair and Balanced Reform of Public Procurement in Ireland. Even though it is an organisation that is getting involved in doing something that benefits its constituent members, there is a lot of very good recommendations within its document. There is nothing that puts it more in focus and says what the ordinary person might think than, if there is someone not doing something well, there need to be consequences.

I know some work has been done in the area from a legislative point of view, including from Senator Alice-Mary Higgins and a number of colleagues, which was the Quality in Public Procurement (Contract Preparation and Award Criteria) Bill 2021. I note the Bill is only up for Second Stage in the Dáil in 2025, so it has been a long time coming. One of the Minister of State's predecessors had issues with putting conditions on projects where more than 50% would be criteria other than price. For too long, we have been looking at either the lowest price or the quickest job without looking at the overall economic benefit, because this comes into play, and I will talk about his after I hear the Minister of State's reply, years later when we work out if a particular tender was a good one and whether it provided a good service to the State in terms of the money we put in.

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