Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the specification and to which cost was the revamped etenders.gov.ie website built. [53999/12]

Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Between 2003 and 9th November 2012 the government’s e-Tenders website was a public sector portal that allowed public sector bodies publish tender notices on government and public sector procurement across Ireland. It did not have the functionality to allow many other aspects of the procurement process to be completed electronically. In September 2011, the National Procurement Service issued a tender specification for a fully managed electronic tendering system to meet Ireland’s requirements in relation to electronic public procurement and be compliant with the European Union requirements.

The specification was to provide additional functionality including: eAssessment, eAwarding, eAuctions and Contract Management amongst others. The specification was drawn up following an in depth market analysis by a cross-agency steering group, including representatives from the HSE and Departments of Finance and Justice and Equality. Research included presentations of systems by some of the leading service providers in the market place. The actual specification did not seek a software development solution, but a rather an off the shelf solution to the upgraded website. The specification itself is extremely detailed and following a competitive open procedure, the contract was awarded to EU Supply, a Swedish based company. The National Procurement Service has a five year contract with EU Supply for this upgraded system at a cost of €33,874.50 per quarter. The previous service provider was recently charging €57,690 per quarter, which included some data migration to the new service provider.