Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Senator acknowledged there are legal and regulatory hurdles to what we are trying to do here but I share his enthusiasm for what he is trying to achieve.

Public procurement in Ireland is governed by EU and national law, and national guidelines. The EU treaty principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination, transparency, mutual recognition, proportionality, free movement of goods and services and the right of establishment must be observed on all tenders. Public procurement procedures require all applicants to meet the standards set out in the tender documentation when applying for public contracts. The assessment of a tenderer's financial and economic standing, and professional and technical capacity is a key part of the procurement process. This is because the contracting authority must be satisfied that a tenderer has the necessary capacity to carry out a contract if awarded it.

Establishing the appropriate certifiable criteria that are relevant and appropriate to a particular contract is a matter for the contracting authority concerned. In this case it would be Monaghan County Council. This is because the contracting authority is in the best position to gauge the criteria that are appropriate to the needs of a proposed contract to ensure value for money and minimise risk to the Exchequer. The qualification criteria that are required by the contracting authority should be proportionate to the subject matter of the contract. Verification of compliance with the non-exclusionary grounds for selection is sought before the awarding of any contract and to ensure they meet the award criteria, whether they are inside or outside the State. A contracting authority should also ensure it has appropriate contract management mechanisms in place post award to ensure compliance by the contractor of its obligations under the contract.

The Office of Government Procurement, OGP, supports compliance by providing procurement solutions, advice, guidance and systems for public bodies promoting good practice and proactive engagement with our sourcing partners in health education, defence and local government sectors through the procurement executive. Furthermore, the OGP’s key account managers are in regular contact with the procurement officers in Departments and public bodies to help, support and remind them of their obligations regarding public procurement. It should be noted that it is the responsibility of each contracting authority to ensure it adheres to the policy framework and associated guidelines which have been developed to facilitate compliance with the public procurement rules. Public procurement practices are subject to audit and scrutiny under the Comptroller and Auditor General and Local Government Reform Acts.

There is a section in our programme for Government about procurement and several references to it. We refer to the fact we want to see green public procurement brought in and social considerations taken into account when bids are awarded. We are working on that and that must be done within three years, which is our commitment in the programme for Government. A local supplier may be bidding against an organisation on the other side of the world and that distant company would have a much larger carbon footprint in the delivery of its service and labour practices, and the amount of money it would be investing in employment and training may be much lower than is being done in the local firm. If we can find a mechanism to operate in that respect, that is certainly one of my objectives in this Ministry.

The Deputy asked about Brexit. The year 2020 has been the year of the pandemic and 2021 looks like it will be the year of Brexit. We do not know yet whether we will have a deal. The budget was formed on the assumption that we will not have a deal. I will come back to that issue in my response to follow-up questions.