Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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152. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the number of staff working in the procurement area for major State infrastructure projects in her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4571/19]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The productive investments undertaken by my Department to support Irish based enterprise and innovation development are done primarily through the form of grant offerings to agency client companies and to higher education institutions.

The Department is not directly involved in large-scale State infrastructural projects. Therefore no staff of the Department are involved in procurement for such projects.

Notwithstanding this, staff in my Department engaged in public procurement for goods and services apply the guidelines published by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP). Furthermore, staff are guided by the expertise that resides in the OGP, and where appropriate use existing framework agreements put in place by the experts in the OGP, ensuring my staff can be confident that they are meeting their compliance obligations.

The OGP organise procurement in the public service under a unified structure to ensure that the procurement expertise and experience that exists is harnessed and applied consistently to public procurement activities.