Results 1-20 of 3,478 for speaker:Emer Higgins

Transparency and Social Value in Public Procurement Bill 2024: Second Stage [Private Members] (26 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank Deputies for their engagement on the Bill and in particular Deputy Farrell who worked on it. It has been useful to have the opportunity to discuss public procurement on the floor of the Dáil, important considerations for it and how the Government can ensure better services for the people who come here to live and work and who are born and live here. It is important that we make...

Transparency and Social Value in Public Procurement Bill 2024: Second Stage [Private Members] (26 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after “That” and substitute the following: “Dail Eireann resolves that the Transparency and Social Value in Public Procurement (Bill 2024) be read a second time this day 24 months, to allow for consideration of the complex legal issues in the Bill and how they interact with the Companies Act 2014 and the EU’s eForms...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: This is my second time before this committee. I thank members for their collaboration thus far but I do not think we will be quite as quick as we were the last time. Vote 39 covers the Office of Government Procurement, OGP. Procurement is a key element of the Government’s public service reform agenda. The State procures goods, services and works costing in the region of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 11 - Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
Vote 43 - Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (Revised) (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: It depends. In terms of sourcing, they often are. If the Deputy can imagine it, we have two different wings of the Office of Government Procurement. One is in relation to policy and one in relation to sourcing. From a policy perspective, our officials work to devise frameworks, guidelines, circulars and a lot of support for Government Departments and agencies to be able to understand the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank the Deputy. We have had really positive engagement with SMEs over the last number of months. At the moment, we are devising our first ever national public procurement strategy. The prequel to that was making sure that we had all of the right feedback from all of the right sectors, so we launched an online survey and reached out to many businesses through their business...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: Absolutely. I do not know how brief I can be on this.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: Absolutely. As the Deputy may be aware, the Government is investing into apps. The first is the HSE healthcare app, which has been launched in the last months. My team in the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer worked with the HSE to get it to the point where it successfully launched that. That is being rolled out. It is particularly aimed at women going through the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I am happy to take that. Digitalisation is a huge part of what the Government is focused on at the moment. We have recently rolled out our new AI guidelines for all public and civil servants to show people that we are here to help them embrace new technologies and use them to ultimately make better decisions. However, we are doing that in a way that always puts the human at the centre of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I cannot answer as to whether other Departments have allocated funding for this but it is very much on the agenda. There are monthly meetings with the Department of children on this and it is looking at it because equality comes under that. Our Department, through our officials from the Office of Government Procurement and in the OCGIO, is very much involved in it. I recently met with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank the Senator for those questions and his interest in this topic. His first question was regarding the policy decisions that are made in the Office of Government Procurement and whether they are in law. It depends. We have EU legislation that we have transposed into Irish law. In that case, it is absolutely a legal requirement. Then we have other circulars, which Cabinet will have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: That is legally challenging for us to do but, at the same time, we highlight companies where we feel they have been really good in this space. That is a bonus and we would encourage people to work with them. There is EU law when it comes to this so we have to be very careful to make sure we do not put out any advice that could be defamatory either from the Office of Government Procurement...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: For the well-being index?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: We do not publish that. We do publish our guidelines around it. For example, we will have new green public procurement guidelines, which we hope to get approved by Cabinet in the next month or so. That is what we publish, as opposed to the outcomes. While we are monitoring it, we feed a lot of that into the strategy, which we are currently devising as well.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I can stay for two minutes to touch upon some of the Senator's points rather than her getting no answer.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: That is fine.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I thank Senator Higgins. I know she has a particular interest and passion in this area. I have discussed it with her in the Seanad. I thank her for her positive engagement. I also thank her for encouraging people to avail of the opportunity to participate in the recent public consultation on our first ever national public procurement strategy. A lot is happening in this space at EU and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: In terms of green public procurement, I can confirm that last year the then Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications published Buying Greener: Green Public Procurement Strategy and Action Plan 2024- 2027. That Department is the lead on this but the Office of Government Procurement helped to develop the strategy. We have been given a number of tasks, one of which is action...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: I agree data is an issue. We need to have better data to be able to oversee in a better way. Data is something that is very much looked at from an EU directive perspective. It is something that is going to be featuring very strongly in this Government's first ever national public procurement strategy. We want to get to a point where we have better visibility. From the perspective of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: Any circular of that nature would come from the Minister, Deputy Chambers, who is very committed to delivering reform, better value for money and better rigour when it comes to public expenditure. I would imagine the circular is rooted in that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (25 Jun 2025)

Emer Higgins: In terms of procurement specifically, the answer is "No". As new tenders go up online, they are obviously looked at. All of our tenders would go through eTenders and they are looked at against set criteria, which would absolutely include social and ethical clauses. Human rights would come under ethical clauses. To the Senator's wider point, I agree that we are seeing some companies, some...