Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate my good friend and colleague, Senator Higgins, on this legislation. She is a particularly reflective individual and a very hard-working Senator. The Bill is the product of much assiduous work. It has led to a good debate about procurement and how to legislate properly for it. The Senator has made a great contribution to the House on this matter and is to be commended for that. She displays tremendous patriotism and commitment to all of these matters, as well as great dedication to the Seanad. There is approximately €116 billion worth of contracts in the national development plan. That imminent expenditure, which is wonderful, brings into focus this whole question. I had a relation in Cavan who had a healthy thriftiness, a condition that is much caricatured by Niall Tóibín, of course, incorrectly. This particular relation of mine had a certain thriftiness about him but he would always buy everything new at a time when the culture would allow for buying second-hand things. He was asked by a neighbour why he bought everything new, given that he had this other attribute, and he said the reason was that the new article was the cheapest article. This is the basic fundamental principle that is at issue here. Sometimes, what is a little dearer may be the cheapest in the long term because of the overall holistic impact. I will mention a cautionary tale in that regard shortly.

The question of sustainability arises in the context of the climate change Bill published yesterday, which is wonderful legislation and is to be applauded and welcomed. Sustainability and green energy-proofing will have to be part of procurement into the future in areas like low-cost energy, clean energy and the use of products arising from clean energy. The social impact is very important. We have known cases down the years of exploited foreign workers in this country, and there were some shocking examples back in the Celtic Tiger days of Turkish labourers in Ireland and how they were being treated on building sites. That sort of thing has to be addressed in the context of the procurement process. Decent employment standards have to be addressed, as well as the whole human rights agenda. I believe that is all sustainable.

The cautionary tale I want mention to Senator Higgins and the Minister of State is that we have to watch that this would not provide a smokescreen for fiddling. By that, I mean that if there were wrongly and properly accepted tenders, for wrong and corrupt reasons and for favouritism and insider trading, the pretext could be that such tenders could represent a supposed social advantage. Therefore, we need very strict criteria. I sat on the tenders committee of a county council for a number of years and I know where this could come into play. One would be rejecting the lowest or cheapest tender and doing it on the premise that there was more social equity in the manner of operation of the other one. I ask Senator Higgins and the Minister of State to take care that we avoid corruption being used as a smokescreen, albeit a right and laudatory exercise in the first place.

There is interesting issue that arises in the school system locally and across the country, although, naturally, I know my local examples best. Schools are constrained by the national procurement framework in that they cannot support local businesses. They would wish to support local businesses and tradespeople who sponsor them and events in the school but they cannot do that because of the national procurement model. Sometimes that is not a good thing. The metric in the national procurement model is cost alone and, thus, might preclude local tradespeople from being involved.

There is an interesting thing that happens in the Border region. I am all in favour of and I speak at the Brexit committee and all of my other committees about the need for cross-Border co-operation, which there is, should be and must be. However, one of the little by-products of the Border in my area is that, because of lower wages and different laws in the North in regard to employment rules and so on, it is possible for Northern people to come to the South, where they are very welcome. The issue is that they can tender at an artificially low rate because they come from a regime of lower wages, more casual employment, no unionisation and so on. That is an issue along the Border. I notice my good friend, Senator Davitt, nodding because he knows that terrain as he lives near the Cavan border. This is a real issue in my area.Contracts for the building of local community schools and various other public facilities have been lost to people who are entitled to tender under EU law but who should not be able to come in with a different regime and be considered to be on an equal playing pitch. Therein lies the kernel of the problem. As has been mentioned, there are 7,000 agencies in the country doing this, which makes it a very complex business.

I forget who made the point about persons with disabilities, but it was well made. That is very important. The Scottish model was cited as an issue. There is a bonus, as it were, being given in the Scottish model of procurement for the employment of persons with disability. We all know from practical experience that we will not be able to increase the ratio of persons with varying disabilities employed without having it built into the procurement process as a bonus. Otherwise, if one were to opt for the lowest price in a blanket way, one would miss that element.

I am going over time so I will conclude by genuinely congratulating my colleague, Senator Higgins. It is extremely deep and reflective legislation and it is worthy of serious consideration. However, if it takes a year to get it right, we should get it right, so I would not quibble over the few months if I were her.