Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 464: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if, in the interest of reducing paper use, her 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 she will make a statement on the matter. [39740/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The procurement of goods and services by the Department and its Agencies complies with both EU procurement directives and national public procurement policy, as enunciated in guidelines issued by the Department of Finance. The Department's guiding principles are transparency and openness of competition and to ensure that the taxpayer obtains value for money and that the public procurement function is discharged honestly and fairly.

Extensive use is made of electronic documentation when undertaking procurement. Requests for tender (RFT) are advertised on the e-tenders website and all follow up activity, such as dealing with vendor queries and requests for additional information are handled electronically.

The established practice in the department is to require vendors to submit both electronic and hard copies of documentation when responding to RFTs. This facilitates the tender evaluation process. The feasibility of accepting tender documentation in electronic format only will be examined in the context of the department's ongoing reviews of the use of electronic documentation.