Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I formally second the amendment. While I am glad to see the Government supporting the Bill passing Second Stage, I would rather that it would be deemed to have passed after six months rather than one year. That is important because, as we have heard, the decisions are going to be made in respect of that €116 billion in the next two to three years. I do not want us to have spent €50 billion and then come back and say that we should have done it better. In terms of time, I have engaged on this issue since 2014. I have engaged with Office of Government Procurement officials since that time. We engaged very intensively in the last period with the Department, officials and with the Attorney General. Any feedback from that engagement has been incorporated into the streamlined Bill and I am most confident that it is excellently reflective of the law. I would like to pay tribute to the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, which has done tremendous work, and David Dodd, Ciaran Mooney and Kate Bulter in particular, who did drafting and work on both the previous legislation and this new refined legislation. I also thank Dr. Deirdre Halloran and other academics who have contributed to this work.

There has been wide engagement and there is an appetite for this Bill. I have spoken to unions, including Fórsa and the public service unions, the Royal Institute of Architects, service providers, small firms and IBEC. There is a wide understanding of the need for a shift towards a stronger quality focus. Even one of the former chairs of the Construction Industry Federation described lowest-cost bidding as a plague on the industry. Therefore, we must be very clear that there is a strong momentum and desire for action on this issue. That is why I want us to move forward and I am seconding the motion that we should return to this legislation in six months. I thank the Minister of State for indicating that if the Bill does come back to the House in six months or one year, Government time will be given to it. That is welcome.

In the small bit of time remaining, I want to address some of the many very interesting points and questions that were raised and to perhaps provide some clarification. There is no prohibition in this Bill; discretion remains. There is greater accountability. This goes to Senator Murphy's question on whether the system will be onerous. It will not be. There will be accountability. If procuring authorities go with price quality, they do not need to approach any senior accountable officer. The Bill is designed directly to encourage this. A question was asked as to whether the legislation will make it harder for procuring authorities to basically go with price only. It will. The Bill absolutely respects the discretion that authorities have to do this, but it does make it something that must be considered further.I would not make apologies for that. That is one of the key reasons this Bill will work. It is important we encourage and reward best practice. The Office of Government Procurement, OGP, guidelines have been mentioned extensively and they are good. I engaged extensively with the OGP and recognise some of the language from my previous engagement in the last Oireachtas in those guidelines and I am aware that this is an area in which there is movement. Those guidelines are fine and good but there needs to be more and the State cannot outsource its political and policy responsibility to show and send that key signal that it wants bodies to think about quality, and not just hopes that some bodies will happen to take up best practice. That is what the message is from this Bill. It is important in that regard that we send that signal through this legislation to all of the procurement officials and to the contracting authorities, that it is almost an imprimaturto think about quality.

It also sends a very strong message to small and medium-sized businesses and to others to say that we value and that we will recognise and reward leading standards, best practice, innovation and new ideas. It encourages an ecosystem of better environmental sustainability and, indeed, social and employment standards right across the board. For small businesses, which I believe were mentioned, that is a significant concern.

Of course, this is EU-wide and we need to look at it in that way, but this Bill will help in three ways. When one talks about quality, it will work against bundling of the very large contract based on one big figure. It will support less bundling and it will give a competitive advantage to companies which are doing very good and important things and doing them well. It will give them a competitive advantage that they could not have simply in terms of scale and also the financial piece very large companies have. It also encourages good quality supply chains. This is going to have a knock-on effect where those who win contracts will also think about their supply chain, which may also be SMEs themselves. That is why it is very important and takes us forward.

We always say we know a contract runs over, but it does not need to run over. We do not need to have millions of euro in supplementary claims. That is not normal or standard and in other countries, like the Netherlands where there are these policies, that does not happen. We can do more and are not restricted but are empowered by those EU directives. This should be a positive opportunity.

I hope the Minister of State will support the six-month amendment and I look forward to further engagement on this, on green procurement and on other employment issues because this is one part of the wider picture of transformative public procurement.