Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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304. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will name each company awarded a contract for the provision of professional services by her Department and agencies under her aegis since May 2011; the value and purpose of the contract; if a competitive tendering process was undertaken in line with public procurement best practice; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6461/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The procurement of services is essential to support the Department in providing high quality service to the public in a cost effective and efficient manner and is governed by a comprehensive regulatory, legal and procedural framework. In accordance with Department of Public Expenditure and Reform procedures, procurements of goods and services in excess of €25,000 ex. VAT and all IT procurements in excess of €10,000 ex. VAT are advertised on E-tenders.

Goods and services are only procured by my Department without competitive tender in exceptional circumstances, in accordance with criteria set out in EU Directive 18/2004 and Department of Public Expenditure and Reform procedures. Article 31 of EU Directive 18/2004 sets out particular circumstances for use of single or restricted tendering for procurements of goods or services over the EU threshold (currently €130,000 (VAT exclusive) for Government Departments); justifications include particularly unforeseeable extreme urgency or exclusive technical expertise of selected provider of services or proprietorial nature of goods required. These conditions are also used in the Department as guidelines in determining the suitability of single tenders in the cases which are below EU threshold. In accordance with Department of Finance Circular 40/02 all procurement contracts which the Department proposes to award without a competitive process which exceed €25,000 in value (exclusive of VAT) are reviewed by my Department’s Internal Audit Unit and an Annual Report of such instances is submitted by the Accounting Officer (Secretary General) to the Comptroller & Auditor General.

I have supplied tables regarding IT and non IT contracts separately below. The following table relates to IT contract awards for the entire period.

In relation to non IT contracts, the information requested is shown in the table.

No new contracts have been recorded to date in 2014. Information for bodies under the aegis of the Department is not immediately available and my officials will provide this information, which is being collated, separately to the Deputy when it is available.