Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 412: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if, in the interest of reducing paper use, his Department has plans to relax or drop the requirement to supply three or more hard copies of tender documentation and to move towards greater use of electronic documentation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39737/08]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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My Department makes use of the secure electronic postbox facility for receipt of tenders that is now available on the government procurement portal www.etenders.gov.ie . I understand that initial experience has been satisfactory and that it is intended to make more use of this facility from now on. Bearing in mind that not all tenderers may have access to broadband, it will be necessary to continue to allow tenderers the option to submit hard copies if that is their preference.

I am very conscious of the time and effort that businesses have to invest in the preparation of tenders and for this reason my Department will continue to try and keep its tender response requirements as simple and as straightforward as possible. All of the Department's tender documents are issued electronically via the etenders portal and this has greatly reduced the Department's paper requirements in tendering.