Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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71. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the reason for her Department's decision to award the contract for the State's privatised speed camera system to a company (details supplied), in view of the fact that when the contract was awarded a former director of another company (details supplied) which owns 16% of the company was awaiting sentencing in the United States having admitted to fraud, corruption and bribery; the reason the decision was taken to award the contract to this company in view of the fact that it is based in the Isle of Man; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24919/16]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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On 17 August 2016, a new contract for the provision and operation of the safety camera network on Irish roads was concluded following a public procurement competition. The new contract for the safety camera service is with Road Safety Operations Ireland Limited, a private limited company, trading as GoSafe. All tenders received were evaluated by a tender evaluation committee chaired by my Department and comprising Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, An Garda Síochána, Office of Government Procurement and Transport Infrastructure Ireland. The CSSO provided advices to the evaluation committee throughout the evaluation process. The suitability of all tenderers to proceed to the tender evaluation process was confirmed with reference to a number of qualification and compliance criteria.

A Contracting Authority is required to accept the tenderer which best meets the criteria, save where a tenderer is required to be excluded. In the context of the issue raised by the Deputy concerning proceedings in the United States, a tenderer who has been subject to a conviction by final judgement can be excluded. The conviction to which the Deputy refers is not a conviction of the preferred tenderer referred to in the Deputy's question details, nor is it a conviction of a sub-contractor to the preferred tenderer, but is, rather, a conviction of a person who was previously employed (but is no longer employed) by a different company within a commercial group, of which the shareholder referred to is also a member.