James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and congratulate him on his appointment. I also congratulate the Government on the formation of the Office of Government Procurement. For a long time past, there has been questionable use of taxpayers' money both in terms of how it was being spent and getting value for money. I do not entirely agree with the last speaker in terms of having an emphasis on value for money but I do so in the context of value for money representing real value. It is not just the price of everything but the real value that we can add to our society and economy from a socially aware policy. I welcome the fact that the Minister of State's speech included the issue of social considerations.

As other speakers have said, it is important to cut waste while not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In that instance, I am really referring to SMEs which are hugely important in supplying the State. They sometimes find the tendering process very difficult but equally find themselves excluded as tenders become bigger. As the last speaker said, library procurement, while not within the Minister of State's remit, is covered in this area. There has been a failure to break that down into regional approaches which would afford smaller businesses an opportunity to bid for tenders. In the past, we had the example of Cavan and Monaghan coming together and doing a tender which was of a size that many small and medium enterprises could avail of.

Other countries have been mentioned. France had its Culture EY report in 2011 whereby it valued the whole area at approximately €74.6 billion, with 1.2 million jobs involved. Of that, €5.6 billion was for books and literature.There are also 79,613 jobs involved. Similarly, if we look to Germany, it takes a much different view. According to a German Minister, Michael Nuamann, books are not just a commodity, but a cultural identity issue which should be valued hugely, and the Germans do so. As pointed out by other speakers, we are faced with a challenge here when it comes to our libraries. In 2012, three businesses, Rondo in Belfast, Greene's in Dublin and Collins in Cork, closed as a consequence of tenders being beyond what they were capable of meeting. I am also informed that in 2012 we exported Irish books published in Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland to Norwich only to re-import them. We need to look at this. As I said, many of the companies in this area have gone out of business and there is concern that the few remaining will go out of business, including the Open Book Company Library Services, which is in my area. There may be only about four companies remaining that are focused on the library service but there are many other bookshops and distributors also involved in this area.

In the broader area of government procurement, there is no doubt but that there has been a huge step forward in this area, on which I commend the Government and the Minister. We need to continue to seek value for money but always with a mind and an eye to how it might have broader affects within society, particularly in relation to the small and medium enterprise area and the smaller employer.

When I was the Minister for Health, I came across a small project in respect of which a then recently well qualified architect proposed to bid for the tender but he was precluded from doing so because of the requirement to have previously completed a tender worth at least €1 million. It is akin to a person seeking a job being required to have experience but being unable to gain experience without first being given a job. All of these things need to be factored in, and I have no doubt the Minister will look at those issues. I appeal to him to do so. Hopefully, he will come back to us with more nuanced solutions later in the year.