Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)

I congratulate my colleague Deputy Farrell for bringing this Bill forward. It is significant legislation. It very much aligns with the work that the Deputy has done since she entered this Chamber in 2020. She is very much focused on the question of public procurement and driving economic and social change through the development of responsible public procurement systems. It is quite extraordinary when we consider that €22 billion of taxpayers' money, generated by the hard work of Irish citizens, will be spent on public procurement this year. To put that in context, that comes in at approximately 20% of what we expect the State to spend next year. That is a significant amount of taxpayers' money. We could be doing much more with the resources we have to generate the kind of change environmentally, socially and from an employment of view in this country that many of us in the House believe ought to occur. In the context of Deputy Farrell's chairing of the Oireachtas joint committee on finance, we will deal with procurement issues over the next period. It is very much on our work agenda because we all believe that improvements need to be made to how services and goods are procured in this State. We are not using all the opportunities provided to us to drive the kind of change we need.

I have studied this area carefully over the years. A number of initiatives can be taken to improve the situation for everyone. I think the Minister of State will agree, given she referenced this broadly in her remarks, that public procurement can be used as a way in which we can drive better outcomes, for example, for SMEs. I sought to do that a number of years ago in a different set of circumstances when the country was in greater difficulty economically than it is now to try to make sure that indigenous enterprise was assisted in obtaining a greater share of the pie through public procurement. SMEs with limited staff, facilities and supports available to them found navigation of the public procurement system quite difficult and quite onerous from an administrative point of view. There are ways in which we can simplify that. The House often divides when we talk about regulation. I believe in regulation but not overregulation. I believe in smart regulation. One side of the House appears to think that deregulation is a good thing; I do not. I believe in smart regulation and certainly not burdening SMEs or anybody else with ridiculous forms of regulation. Smart regulation supports good business and good business practice. It ensures a level playing pitch.

That is why I want to move on to some of the remarks made by Deputy O'Reilly. We also ensure that there is a level playing pitch for SMEs, and indeed, for workers in this country when we use public procurement better, when we drive social and economic change and when we embed the principles, for example, of collective bargaining. As some other states that we like to compare ourselves against in the European Union do, we need to ensure that we do not provide lucrative contracts to companies that do not, for example, recognise trade unions; frustrate the right of people to join trade unions; that do not welcome the concept of collective bargaining - it is quite the opposite; they are actively hostile to it; or that routinely ignore Labour Court recommendations while, at the same time, enjoying all of the benefits of the State's largesse when it comes to public procurement. I recall a number of years ago reintroducing employment regulation orders, EROs, that levelled the playing pitch, for example, for good contract security and cleaning companies and for their staff. This is when we take questions of pay out of the public procurement issue where employers compete on quality and standards rather than pay. Through replies to parliamentary questions, doing some additional research and uncovering the facts a number of years ago, it was found that a considerable number of contractors at that point providing services to the State that were ignoring EROs and simply paying staff what they wanted.

Very little action was taken by line Departments to bring those contracted companies into line. In many ways, we speak out of both sides of our mouths when it comes to public procurement and driving change.

I noted that in her remarks, the Minister of State mentioned that public procurement can propel changes in public service delivery and create jobs to stimulate private sector growth. There was very little about how we could drive environmental improvements or economic change and level the playing pitch for working people. That has to be at the heart of any review of public procurement in this country.

This not something that should divide the House on philosophical or narrow ideological grounds. Questions of good public procurement and driving the change we need through public procurement should not be exclusive to those who describe ourselves as being on the left. Good government, value for money and responsible public spending should be matters that those who regard themselves as being on the centre or centre right should also value. It does not make sense. This is something we should all unite on. A huge amount of public resources go into public procurement every year and the outcomes are not what they might be. No one should be afraid of transparency. We can differ all we want on policy goals. We have these debates, as we should, on the floor of this House, in committees and through the media, but transparency should be something everyone is interested in.

On a number of occasions in her remarks, the Minister of State - I accept she said this in good faith and I have no doubt she was well advised by experienced officials - said we are talking all the time about simplification and deregulation and how that is the agenda of the European Union. This is actually about driving simplification. It may be in a way the Minister of State disagrees with, but I hope she should would concede that the principles of what Deputy Farrell is trying to achieve and which we support are positive. That is why I am disappointed that we have not only a 12-month delay but a 24 month delay, which, in the context of how the Government tends to deal with Private Members' Bills these days, is unusual. I understand a review is ongoing at European Union level and that the national procurement strategy is also under way. The Minister of State also made the point that the e-form system in some way simplifies the situation and makes information publicly available. It does, but to the best of my recollection, it does not make all that information available in one place that is accessible in a way that those of us who are interested in these things we can navigate and which other firms can see.

I remember a number of years ago that an organisation was supported in being set up by my party colleague then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin. It was called Benefacts. It drove a huge amount of change and transparency in the not-for-profit sector. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform allowed this organisation to grow from itself - it is now known as the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation - and it provided lots of interesting information about levels of State funding for NGOs and other not-for-profit organisations, the number of staff they had, contracts they had and so on. It was buried a number of years ago, ridiculously. It brought great transparency to that sector. It is a similar kind of effort we are trying to talk about today, bringing greater transparency to an area of public expenditure we should be much more interested in than we are. I had hoped the Minister of State would work with us and allow the Bill to get to Committee Stage for further interrogation and examination, in parallel with the processes that she referred to in her remarks.

I again thank Deputy Farrell for bringing this important legislation to the House. It is a debate that does not get as much attention as it should, given the value of the resources we are talking about and the potential for a progressive public procurement system to drive change at every level of our society and economy. The Labour Party is pleased to support the principles of this legislation and the contents of the Bill.

See this speech in context