Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 493: To ask the Minister for Defence 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. [39732/08]

Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)
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The public procurement rules do not specify the number of copies of tender documents to be submitted but they do permit contracting authorities to require the submission of tenders solely by electronic means. The national public procurement website, www.etenders.gov.ie, known as e-tenders and provided by the National Public Procurement Policy Unit of the Department of Finance, has a facility for the submission of tenders electronically. My Department has accepted tenders electronically for a number of tendering procedures. The decision as to whether or not to request hard copies is made on the basis of the requirements of each competition and whether the tender documents will have to be circulated in hard copy for the purposes of evaluation.

Whilst electronic versions of tenders are sought from time to time, many staff would, understandably, have difficultly examining large amounts of, what is very often, complex information on screen. In these circumstances, it is invariably necessary to print hard-copy extracts.

In addition to the acceptance of tenders online, the website also permits contracting authorities to make all documentation associated with a request for tender to be made available online, for downloading by suppliers. My Department makes extensive use of this facility.

When tender competitions have closed and the information no longer needs to be retained, it is the policy of my Department to shred and re-cycle the paper used.