John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Question 210: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the value and volume of contracts awarded to Irish companies by Government Departments and agencies compared to the value of contracts awarded to companies outside the State; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37630/11]

Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Since 2009, the National Procurement Service (NPS) has been responsible for producing annual statistical information in relation to above-EU threshold procurement activity by the Irish public sector and providing these statistics to the European Commission. Current thresholds (valid from January 2010 to December 2011) above which tenders must be advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) are as follows:

Information on contract placement is available currently for the years 2008-2010 relates to above-EU threshold contracts only and is contained in the tabular statement below. Data in respect of 2011 will not be available until the third quarter 2012 as this data is collated a year in arrears. The Deputy should be aware that the figures contained in the table relates to the number of contracts placed which were above the EU Threshold for the year in question and must not be interpreted as indicative statistics for the overall procurement spend. It must also be borne in mind that these statistics relate only to above threshold procurements, where contract award notices were published, and where the nationality of the winning tenderer was disclosed.

For example, when considering the year 2009, €2.8 billion worth of expenditure was advertised in the Official Journal, out of the €15 billion public procurement spend in that year. The NPS estimates that less than 5% of the overall spend went to non-domestic suppliers, as a significant proportion of the overall procurement spend is below the EU threshold and is also below the threshold for advertising on eTenders (the eTenders threshold was €50,000 in 2009).

It should be noted also that all the statistics relating to non-domestic suppliers relate to suppliers with an address in countries other than Ireland and do not distinguish between European and non-European suppliers.