Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I congratulate him on his new portfolio and look forward to working with him. There are many strong, commonsense aspects to the national shared services office, as have been put forward. I note that the Citizens Information Board, CIB, was recently debated in the committee on social protection. The citizens information service, CIS, and the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS, offices put forward proposals on how there could be a sharing of human resources, HR, and payroll. They believed that to be a more efficient response to the proposal put forward by the CIB, which effectively involved the dissolution of numerous MABS and CIS offices around the country to facilitate amalgamation. We heard in the testimony to the committee that there are mechanisms whereby we can have multiple companies and entities doing work and sharing this aspect of that work. It would be useful if the Minister sent this to the Department of Social Protection and encouraged it to look on it as a potentially different approach from the approach currently being taken in respect of that restructure, an approach which has been opposed by a vote of the Dáil and by the social protection committee.

My concern about this area is similar to that raised by Sinn Féin. Deputy Cullinane did excellent work on this. The Minister of State responded to some of those concerns, so I welcome the new section 35. I believe there have been changes since the Bill was drafted and I welcome that section 35 contains a more constrained definition of the data that might be shared. That is advisable and positive. I commend that, but I also hope we can get reassurances that there is no intention to extend it back to the wider capacity it had initially. I am concerned about section 8 and the power of entering into contracts for the procurement of goods and services. From my reading of the transcripts of proceedings in the Dáil I understand the Minister has given assurances that there is no intention to tender in this regard. I am still concerned that this is an independent office and I do not know to what extent we can set the policy on decisions as to whether these areas would be tendered. The current European procurement rules move in one direction whereby if an area is opened to tender and competition it potentially remains open. It is extremely difficult to move back to a public delivery of that public good. I would appreciate hearing the Minister's explanation of the safeguards that exist to ensure that we do not move towards tendering and that we do not leave ourselves in a situation where we are unable to reverse out of it.

There are particular concerns about data in some of the contracts we have at present. We are aware that the Safe Harbour pact was stuck down at EU level as being an inadequate protection of the data of European citizens. Its replacement, the Privacy Shield deal, is now being challenged in the courts. There is concern. In some of the contracts we have, for example, there is the issue of American companies being able to process that data. The issue is the adequate protection of data. Again, that arises only where we have a situation of tendering and procurement, but our intention is not enough in that regard.The issue relates to human resources. We know, for example, that in the United States at one point there was a decision taken in respect of the payment of the living wage to staff members across a number of public bodies, in terms of seeking to drive forward good practices such as social clauses on employment standards, rewarding higher employment standards and giving a more positive weighting. Where does that positive practice relate to employment and will the State's capacity and the Minister of State's capacity to influence be diminished? Will we be told in the future that there are positive measures which we wish to introduce but we are precluded from doing so because this is an independent office and it is abiding by a narrow definition of procurement guidelines?

We discussed the fiasco in this House of procurement in terms of library services. We were told that we could not find a Minister to take accountability in terms of where the decision was made to bundle the library contract. It was moved from Minister to Minister and the Office of Government Procurement, back to the Department of Education and Skills and around the houses. We could not find a Department to take responsibility for the issue. Those are not necessarily complications; they are potential complications. I accept that in his speech the Minister of State indicated that this is not the road he wants to go down but I would like a sense from him of how he plans to ensure this independent office does not choose to go down those routes in the future. I again thank him for the Bill. It makes sense.