Áine Brady (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator Hannigan. The Government is fully committed to the protection of our planet's precious forest resources. Ecologically sustainable public procurement has a central role in ensuring that Ireland plays its part. I therefore sincerely thank the Senator for his question. I am delighted to have this opportunity to apprise the House of our actions with regard to the public procurement of wood and wood products. These initiatives will help ensure the utilisation of our forest resources in a cost-effective manner while also safeguarding them for the benefit of future generations.

In 2004, the European Union adopted two directives on public procurement, namely, directives 17 and 18 of 2004, for entities in the utilities and public sectors, respectively. These directives clarify the possibilities for public sector procurers to include environmental and social criteria in their tenders. In other words, the legislation already exists to enable green public procurement, GPP, not least for wood and wood products.

In response to the enhanced possibilities clarified by these directives, the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government advised local authorities in 2006 on environmental considerations in public infrastructure procurement. Local authorities planning such procurement were urged to consider how they can contribute to the protection of the environment and promote sustainable development, while also ensuring that best value for money is obtained in the award of contracts. The Department pointed out in this circular that a range of environmentally sustainable systems and materials are increasingly being incorporated into public capital projects. These include wood pellet boilers and materials such as timber frame windows certified from sustainable forest sources.

I should point out the limitations of the procurement role of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Since its establishment in 2002, the national public procurement policy unit of the Department of Finance has had overall responsibility for procurement modernisation. The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has worked with this unit chiefly in two respects, namely, in helping the procurement modernisation process with regard to local authorities and in advocating green public procurement more generally. In recent months, the establishment of the national public procurement operations unit is a highly welcome development. The Government has decided that this unit will be the mechanism to embed green public procurement principles deeply into our procurement practices. We have some distance to go before green procurement becomes as central to public procurement in Ireland as it is in some other member states. The national public procurement operations unit will be instrumental in making the necessary progress.

Recently, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, met the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Mansergh, about the preparation of Ireland's first national action plan for green public procurement and agreed that a joint approach is preferable in its development. This is particularly the case in respect of the alignment of GPP principles with the promotion of green jobs and other elements of the Government's drive towards the smart economy. As work on the action plan progresses, the Government will of course incorporate the latest examples of best practice in respect of wood and wood products.

One such development is a new European Union regulation that will require timber traders operating in the EU market for the first time to operate due diligence systems to minimise the risk of trade in illegally sourced timber. This is being negotiated on Ireland's behalf by my colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The GPP national action plan will reflect this EU legislative initiative promoting legal and sustainable timber products. More broadly, it is intended that the action plan will demonstrate and promote both the environmental and economic value of green purchasing of timber products across the Irish public sector.