Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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20. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the consideration he has given to transposing the new European Union procurement directives into Irish Law; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33412/15]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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On 28 March, 2014, the European Commission published three new Directives as a collective reform of the existing EU regime for public procurement under the existing provisions of Directive 2004/17/EU - co-ordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors and Directive 2004/18/EU - on the co-ordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts. 

The new Directives referred to by the Deputy are:

2014/23/EU - on the award of concession contracts

2014/24/EU- on public procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EU

2014/25/EU - on procurement by entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors and repealing Directive 2004/17/EC.

The bulk of the new public procurement suite of Directives are mandatory for all Member States to implement into national law. The Directives will be transposed by Statutory Instrument andI intend to adhere as closely as possible to the wording and intent across the Directives to provide maximum flexibility for procurers. 

These Directives do provide a number of policy choices for Member States. In this regard, the Office of Government Procurement, which is under the aegis of my Department, has conducted both an internal consultation and a public consultation process. The public consultation process was initiated at the end of October 2014 and 43 submissions were received by end January 2015, including submissions by representative bodies such as ICTU, IBEC and Enterprise Ireland.

I understand that the Office of Government Procurement has submitted a draft memorandum to the Office of Parliamentary Counsel to allow the commencement of drafting of the Statutory Instrument transposing Directive 2014/24/EU.

It is expected that the transposition of the public procurement, utilities and concessions Directives into Irish law will be completed by April 2016.

The principal approach to transposing  the new procurement regime as set out in the new Directives has been to retain the flexibilities provided for in the Directives in order to ensure that Ireland is not disadvantaged in any aspect of public procurement relative to other Member States.