James Bannon (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 19:

In page 53, line 18, after "person" to insert ", for a fixed charge,".

As I pointed out the last day, this is a very important amendment, particularly in these times. We are all familiar with the spiralling costs of large and small scale contracts entered into by this and the previous Government at the expense of the taxpayer. We only have to look at what is happening with the cost overruns in the contracts for roads infrastructure. We are told that this country does not have the best system of tendering and some would say our tendering systems are corrupt. I propose that the Bill should stipulate that all contracts entered into must be fixed price contracts. It is important to have more transparency in this area.

We pointed out the procedures that are in place in local authorities with regard to opening tenders etc. It is important that we have more transparency and that we have fixed price tenders. The overruns are unacceptable because they are at the expense of the taxpayer and I tabled the amendment to bring some control back into this area. There could be five, six or even ten tenders for a particular job and it is not fair on those who are rejected, who may have put in a more realistic tender, to discover subsequently that costs under the successful tender had increased by up to 50%. That is unacceptable and it is time for us, as legislators, to take a stand. That is the reason for the amendment.