John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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150. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if Irish Water complied fully with procurement law when appointing consultants and service providers; if any restrictive conditions such as minimum turnover levels were placed on applicants for tendering; the number of firms that tendered for the individual packages; the steps taken to ensure that a significant number of firms were able to bid; the number of water meter installation main contractors that are Irish; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12546/14]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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The Water Services Act 2013 provided for the establishment of Irish Water as an independent subsidiary within the Bord Gáis Éireann Group and assigned the necessary powers to allow Irish Water to undertake the metering programme and prepare for the transfer of water services functions from local authorities. These functions were transferred to Irish Water on 1 January 2014 in accordance with the provisions of the e Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013.

During the course of 2012 and 2013, Bord Gáis engaged in a number of procurement processes associated with the metering programme and the establishment of Irish Water and these contracts are now novated to Irish Water. Irish Water has informed my Department that its tendering process is fully compliant with public procurement rules. In accordance with EU procurement rules, for goods and services contracts valued at over €400k and construction contracts valued at over €5m, Irish Water tenders at EU level. Any contracts are advertised in the EU Official Journal (which is a Europe-wide publication) and on the Irish e-tenders website. This tender process involves a two stage process , a pre-qualification stage and an invitation to tender stage. The pre-qualification stage include s selection criteria which are determined by the nature and value of the tender and are clearly stated in any documentation. Candidates are short-listed on the basis of their pre-qualification submissions and are then invited to proceed to the tender stage. Often , at this stage, the tender can be divided into lots. Contracts are awarded to the most economically advantageous tenders. Various sub-criteria are included in the evaluation and again this is clearly stated in the tender documents.

As part of the preparation by Irish Water to take over public water services from the l local a authorities, a large number of public procurement tenders were undertaken for suppliers of goods and services, ranging from specialist services such as CCTV and Jetting to Repair and Maintenance. Irish Water has confirmed to my Department that the tendering methodology for these framework a agreements was not designed to exclude smaller Irish companies. The framework contracts did include l local a authority area panels to allow as many smaller contractors as possible to be included and ensure competition. The tender process was conducted in an open and transparent manner and a robust and competitive tender process was conducted. Irish Water engaged in discussions with tenderers and l local a authority personnel as part of the tender process to support them, where appropriate, to meet the qualifying criteria.

For the domestic metering programme, given the value of the contract, this tender was advertised at EU level, in accordance with EU procurement rules. The successful Regional Contractors under the tender all have operations based in Ireland. These contractors received, as part of their contract, details of a panel of subcontractors that was formed by my Department. The contractors may employ subcontractors from that panel, but are not obliged to do so. This panel was established using a Qualification System ( System Id 70016).

While I have a role in consenting to capital commitments, my Department is not involved in the award of contracts, and given the volume of tenders undertaken by Irish Water in recent months, involving thousands of firms, the Department does not have details of all of the number of firms participating. Irish Water has put in place arrangements, which have been communicated to Deputies, in relation to queries on operational matters for Irish Water. If the Deputy requires more information, or information on specific tenders, Irish Water can provide this directly through these arrangements.