Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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Question 185: To ask the Minister for Finance the savings that have been made in his Department through the use of open source software packages and generic consumables; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39922/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department, in accordance with Government policy has a procurement policy for the acquisition of all ICT products and services. A procurement exercise must be undertaken based on functional requirements for all software, i.e. not a specific technology brand. The evaluation of such a procurement exercise is conducted on as close to a total cost of ownership (TCO) model as possible and at a minimum includes the following costs: licensing; arising hardware upgrades/ renewals/replacements; IT and user training; support and maintenance; planning, testing and migration; external expertise; and exit costs. My Department has not incurred any expenditure on desktop operating system or productivity software (wordprocessing, spreadsheets, presentation software, email client, etc...) in the last 6 years.

My Department runs a competitive tender exercise each year advertised on the eTenders website for the supply of printer consumables so as to achieve the best value for money. This tender is evaluated with a high emphasis on the cost of supplying the manufacturer's brand of toner as this is the only way of achieving a like with like comparison between the offerings of each vendor. The National Procurement Service is currently establishing a printer consumable framework for the Public Service which is expected to be completed early in 2011, and it is my Department's intention to use this framework for future procurement. The evaluation criteria to be used on the framework will be based on the cost of the manufacturer's brand.

The principal reason for not using generic consumables is the potential for voiding the manufacturer's warranty. Many studies have been carried out on the use of generic consumables and reasons for not using them include:

* Generic toners often cannot produce the same quality as genuine toners. Some generic cartridges that have been designed poorly can lead to toner leaks and printer malfunctions; often these faults brought in by inferior parts will also void the manufacturer's warranty.

* Generic toners can cost more in the long run. One in four remanufactured or refilled cartridges are dead on arrival or fail prematurely and that almost 30% of pages printed from remanufactured toner cartridges were of limited or no use due to poor print quality, which lead to reprints.

* Increased paper usage and paper costs can erode any cost benefit of cheaper toner. Generic toners are also more likely to cause problems with the printer when they cannot effectively emulate patented printer technology resulting in increased printer downtime and repair costs.

* Printer blockages, unusable messy printouts and increased print tests are common side affects from generic toners. These are problems that are much less likely to occur using the original manufacturer's toners.