Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister acknowledging the fact that my legislation mirrors the Dutch legislation, effectively, which is running without concern or obstacle. It has been assessed as delivering 2.4 times better value from contracts. We are not balancing value for money against quality. The fact is that quality is part of value for money. That is why the price-quality ratio approach and the lowest price approach both qualify under that umbrella of most economically advantageous because the EU directives recognise that quality is often one of the ways to deliver value.

As the Minister mentioned, the Dutch legislation has been applying and has been found to deliver greater value by taking the exact approach set out in this Bill, which is consistent with European law. It has been mentioned that it would be difficult to sign off every time we go with price-only criteria but the goal of the Bill is to ensure that price-only becomes the exception rather the rule. It is a requirement and I do not think it is too much for chief decision makers to explain why they are opting for price-only. If it is simply a matter of them feeling it is easier to go with that model because it is the most hands-off model, that is not necessarily the model that is delivering best value for the State. That is a model that simply delivers most convenience or deniability which is not actually a win for public money, for €17 billion of public money or €165 billion of national development plan money.

Those who have agreed with me and who have engaged with me on this issue do not think that the current procurement system is working as well as it should. Effectively, if my Bill makes it harder to continue with business as usual and with not having to think about these issues, then that is okay. This is about a culture shift. I have engaged with many groups on this, including the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, RIAI, the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, Chambers Ireland, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, academics from the National University of Ireland, Galway and the University of Limerick, the Chartered Institute of Building, and SIPTU.From the Construction Industry Federation to SIPTU, people are agreeing that the model needs improvement. Simply arguing that doing this might change what we do, make what we do already more difficult and make us shift is not really an argument for not doing it. It is an argument for doing it because otherwise we hear it may be simpler and it can be easier to go with price only and we do not think we will get the same challenges. We need to streamline. We are putting inertia and convenience over the purpose we should all have, which is getting the best and most genuinely advantageous value from how we spend our public money so that it delivers for us in terms of quality.

We must bear in mind who benefits from putting in those quality criteria. We talk about the legal challenges from the disappointment involved, but let us think about who we disappoint when we do not want to think about quality. When we do not think about quality we penalise good companies that put the effort in to innovate, put work in, have decent employment standards, have better environmental standards, and push ahead in thinking ahead of the contracting authority about what is going on. It is hard to punish or exclude companies that have bad records but it is a lot easier to reward companies that have good records and ones that show they always deliver on time and that people love what they have given to the State. If we think about who loses, the current lowest price model being the default model penalises good companies, including SMEs, that are doing good work and that want to lead. I would point out again that this Dutch model is being taken up all over Europe, so by not bringing it in we are disadvantaging our companies because they will not be navigating the same systems as others. It is important to bear that in mind. It involves doing things a little bit differently but that will become streamlined and it is hoped it will become the exception. It should not be the case that 1,000 sign-offs are coming across the desk of a chief officer but it should be the odd or occasional one where there might be a good reason for it. It is okay that we shift things around a little bit, move on in this and use it better.