Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. Public procurement accounts for 18% of gross domestic product in Europe, and the State spends €8.5 billion every year on goods and services. There is a growing interest in finding ways for this expenditure to be used to deliver wider social, environmental and economic benefits.

In March 2014, the then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin stated:

The use of social clauses in public procurement is limited to instances where they are targeted at factoring into the procurement process consideration of social issues such as employment opportunities, equal opportunities and social inclusion. In order to be compatible with EU law, they must be made known to all interested parties and must not restrict participation by contractors from other member states.

He then went on to confirm that a pilot project had been initiated under the devolved schools building programme.

Social clauses are provided for in European directives, regulation and case law. They can ensure local hiring clauses and apprenticeship clauses are stitched into public procurement contracts. The clauses originated in national law across a number of European states. They fell foul of European competition law, but then a special directive was passed to allow for them with appropriate caveats attached. The reason these social clauses are so important is that without them there is an increasing tendency for contractors to bring their own mobile workforce with them, which means that when public contracts are issued, there is no local dividend in terms of jobs and training for the local community. The contracts operate very successfully in many EU states. I refer to the social clauses in operation in the North, which were introduced by my party. For every €1 million of contract value, the successful bidder has to hire a local unemployed qualified person and a local apprentice. This is working well and the Peace Bridge in Derry is one example of a major project that produced a very good local dividend in employment and training.

Unfortunately, local authorities in Ireland are telling councillors that they cannot include social clauses in procurement contracts as they are awaiting the issuing of guidelines from the Office of Government Procurement, OGP, with regard to the operation of social clauses. A year ago, I understand former Labour Deputy, Derek Nolan, asked the OGP about this topic and was told that it was finalising guidelines and that local authorities could expect to see them the following spring. The difficult is a number of local authorities are still telling us that they have not received the guidelines. There are hard pressed communities up and down the country, which are major unemployment blackspots. Implementation of these clauses could make a major contribution to providing work and opportunities for training. We should not have to wait this long. I hope the Minister of State can confirm that these guidelines have issued, or a date on which they will.