Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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665. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of contracts approved in his Department in 2019 and to date in 2020 without competitive tender; the details of the contract; the company awarded the contract; and the full value of the contract in tabular form. [33272/20]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department operates in a number of locations in Ireland and approximately 90 locations worldwide. It comprises two Votes: Vote 27 International Cooperation and Vote 28 Foreign Affairs. The policy of the Department is to operate competitive tendering as standard procedure in order to achieve best value for money.

The Department ensures that there is an appropriate focus on good practice in procurement and that procedures are in place to ensure compliance with all relevant procurement guidelines. Procurement takes place in compliance with Directive 2014/24/EU and supported by Procurement Guidelines published by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP).

On occasion, a small number of Department contracts do not undergo a competitive process due to exceptional market or other circumstances. Such contracts are recorded in accordance with DPER Circular 40/02. The majority of the contracts relate to provision of proprietary ICT services or to situations where there was a single suitable supplier available. These contracts are subject to regular review by my Department’s procurement team. Other contracts were extended beyond the original expiry date without a competitive process, or in some cases, contracts had previously been awarded but exceeded the relevant thresholds that now require a new competitive process . The Department has already tendered a number of these contracts in 2020 and will tender the remainder of contacts shortly.

Below are details of relevant contracts for 2019 as returns for 2020 are not available at this time. However, 2020 contracts are being monitored and managed by the Department on an ongoing basis.