Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)

I thank Members for the opportunity to attend today and for their engaging and valuable contributions. It is clear from the contributions that there is significant interest in the work of the Department. As the Minister, Deputy Chambers, set out earlier, the Department operates from the centre of government. It does so to drive the delivery of better public services, improved living standards and infrastructure across the island of Ireland. As Minister of State, I have special responsibility for public procurement, digitalisation and egovernment. I work closely with the Minister towards the Department's aims. Delivering reform is central to everything we do in our Department. As Minister of State, a key area I am keen to reform is how the State procures, building on the work undertaken in the Department since it was established. For that reason, the Department has developed a digital public procurement roadmap and is developing Ireland's first-ever national public procurement strategy. That will set out the strategic direction of public procurement for the next five years. The digital roadmap will support some of the key deliverables of the strategy. Our Department's values, which are serving the public interest, transparency, accountability, integrity, fairness and inclusiveness all align with what we are trying to achieve through that strategy. It is a national public procurement strategy. For that reason, it is only fitting and appropriate that the public sits at the very heart of it. A foundational policy position of the strategy is that it must be in the public's best interest. This position is reflected in the ambition of the strategy to improve the lives of those building their lives in Ireland through the delivery of strategic, innovative, sustainable and transparent public procurement that supports competition and value for money. The Minister and I are committed to using public procurement as a strategic tool to deliver wider societal, environmental and economic impact. The Department works with colleagues across government to explore ways we can leverage the collective spending power of the State to drive positive change, deliver better public services and improve the lives of the people of Ireland.

We recognise the crucial role that SMEs, including social enterprises, play in driving economic and societal prosperity. The programme for Government includes a clear commitment to reviewing the public procurement process to work to ensure greater participation from SMEs in Ireland. This commitment is reflected in another of the foundational principles of the strategy, to make public participation in public procurement easier for suppliers and particularly for microcompanies, startups, SMEs and social enterprises. Reflecting another of our Department's values and progressing a programme for Government commitment to make public procurement more transparent, the Minster and I are committed to enhancing transparency at all stages of the procurement process. I chair the public procurement advisory council established in 2024 to advise the development of public procurement across the public sector. This council focuses on six priority areas.One of the key areas is to deliver improvements in data analytics. This will assist with evidence-based policy and will provide more transparency when it comes to public procurement. The work of the council is progressed through three subgroups, one of which, the data analytics working group, is tasked with assisting the council in the alignment of data requirements to facilitate monitoring and examining the potential to leverage the information generally maintained in the contract register as an aid to public procurement data analysis. That work is ongoing.

Earlier, the Minister, Deputy Chambers, highlighted value for money as a key priority for the Department. Value for money is absolutely central to everything we do and it is central to public procurement. It will constitute one of the three themes that will permeate our new strategy. As custodians of public funds, we have a responsibility to spend money in a judicious and diligent way. From a procurement perspective, this includes not just looking at the cost and the price, it also means looking at things like quality, specialist expertise and the social, environmental and economic impacts.

The Minister, Deputy Chambers, and I are developing an ambitious but achievable work programme and we will be delivering world-class public services because we know that involves not only turning public expenditure into outcomes that citizens value, but today it also involves digitally accessible and changing definitions of value for money that include that environmental and social value. We saw that through, for example, our new green public procurement policy. There are challenges and some changes are, of course, necessary if we are to build an economy that is capable of sustainable prosperity, but we have the will, we have the workforce and we have the tenacity to do this.

I want to respond to some of the comments and remarks made by Senators here today and to acknowledge there was a huge call for investment in infrastructure projects and for Ireland's infrastructure in general, whether that is wastewater in Galway, bypasses in Virginia, national roads in Roscommon, sports halls, amenities or societal amenities. That was very clearly heard. There were calls for further investment in our Defence Forces and I am sure the Department of Defence will be making that case in the ongoing budget negotiations, but there has also been a huge focus here today on housing. We have had people put forward the case for more investment in affordable housing, in social housing, in emergency housing, in student accommodation and in older persons' accommodation. To reiterate, our national development plan which was launched over the summer, is all about putting funding into those key infrastructure projects that are going to unlock housing, whether that is unlocking service sites in places like Galway or whether that is delivering new homes right across the country. It is all about making sure we are investing in our water, our energy and our roads with the ultimate goal of improving Ireland as a place to come, to live, to work, to grow old in but also to ensure we are delivering more and more houses. That is something our Department is working very closely with the Department of housing and planning and many other Departments to ensure happens.

Value for money initiatives were also mentioned here today and we had special mention of procurement best practice and how we learn best practice. I think our new national public procurement strategy will be a great example of how we share best practice and how we get better safeguards and better railings there for people to be able to work through. There was also a call for data capturing by agencies like the HSE when it comes to things like equine therapy, and these are really good pieces of feedback because we need to make sure we are not only looking from the value for money perspective to always make sure we are delivering value for money but also celebrating where that is happening, taking the best practice and the learnings and making sure they are shared throughout other agencies and Departments.

I thank everyone for their comments here today. It was a really constructive and engaging debate and it was a pleasure to be a part of it.