Seanad debates

Friday, 26 March 2021

Quality in Public Procurement (Contract Preparation and Award Criteria) Bill 2021: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Eugene MurphyEugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like Senator Davitt, I compliment Senator Higgins and her colleagues on putting a lot of work into the legislation. This is an issue that we should discuss and this is an important debate because there are several aspects of procurement that need to be thrashed out. It is obvious that the Senators have done a lot of work and research on their Bill. I believe the Minister's proposal to put this back for 12 months to facilitate further discussion or whatever is not the worst suggestion in the world because a lot of discussion is required.

I seek a little information on the legislation and perhaps the Senators will be able to answer. If I am not here then I ask them to come back to me at some stage with the information. There is a proposal that calls for an Accounting Officer or CEO to make a declaration on every procurement procedure where price is the only award criteria. A few things struck me about that aspect. Would that not be very onerous? Is it necessary? Finally, would it not create a significant administrative burden that could delay important contracts from proceeding? I remind the House that there are more than 7,000 contracting authorities in Ireland, including schools and health agencies. Having so many contracting authorities reporting to the Houses of the Oireachtas each year at the scale outlined in section 7(2) could be onerous and could have a negative effect. Again, I only seek clarification in this regard.

The Bill proposes to introduce legislation to compel the Minister to issue guidelines concerning qualitative, environmental, social, human rights and equality considerations. Again, there is a concern that the Bill could have an impact on the climate Bill. Has that been considered by the Office of the Attorney General? The Bill further compels contracting authorities to comply with these guidelines. This would, in my view, create additional regulations further to existing procurement regulations under SI 284 of 2016. In addition, the Office of Government Procurement has developed the national procurement guidelines that are intended as a toolkit for public buyers and a reference guide for economic operators. I understand that those guidelines will shortly be updated to give further prominence to strategic procurement, which included environmental and social considerations.Those are my queries. I have nothing against the Bill. It is a good discussion to have. As I have said, Senator Higgins and her colleagues have put a lot of work into this and I am sure that only good will come out of it.

I will mention one final issue which I am sure Senators have come across. When major public works are being done in a local area, small local firms often feel they are excluded by the procurement process. They often get angry when they see a firm from England, Germany or somewhere else getting work and point out that they employ 20 people and do work to an excellent standard and say that they should get a fair crack of the whip. I often point out to such people that, on the other side of the coin, there are Irish firms getting work in London, Rome or wherever. There are two sides to the coin. It is, however, an issue for smaller firms. At the moment, there is a very significant amount of working going on in respect of road renewal and urban renewal. Smaller firms in these localities are losing out because of the procurement process. Perhaps we could discuss that as a group again. I know there are a lot of EU rules involved, which we must stick by, but smaller firms sometimes feel they are excluded. This discussion we are having today is really good.

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