James Bannon (Fine Gael)

With regard to what the Minister said, it is important that some mechanism be devised whereby the list of tenders for a particular job is published in the county manager's orders. As Senator McCarthy said, there should be a tenders committee and the three or four members on that committee should initial the outside of the envelope and the documents, which would then be passed on. That would be the last the members would see of those contracts. The names of those who tender should appear in the county manager's orders to highlight full transparency in regard to the particular job. Nobody, including the contractors, could be aggrieved about that. One often hears someone complain afterwards that they were within X euro of achieving a contract or that they were lower than what the contractor was taking etc. If they had an agreement they could dispute it if they had the figures and reasons could be given as to why the contract was not taken. That would bring greater transparency to the area of local government and the various authorities established by Government. It would be an open and transparent process.