Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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33. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if his Department and any commercial or non-commercial State bodies and private entities subsidised by 50% or more of public funding under the aegis of his Department have implemented social clauses in their public procurement contracts in the past three years (details supplied); and if so, the nature of these social clauses. [39047/20]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Procurement legislation allows contracting authorities to take social considerations, including environmental requirements, into account at the relevant stages of a procurement process where they are linked to the subject matter of the contract and respect the basic principles of equal treatment, transparency, proportionality and mutual recognition.

Social considerations are included in all public procurement contracts awarded by my Department as a result of statutory requirements in areas such as health and safety, environmental, equality and employment law.

In respect of contracts tendered directly by my Department, non-statutory social clauses have been incorporated into a number of public procurement processes as shown in the table below.

The information requested in relation to the bodies under the aegis of my Department is an operational matter for each body. The Department will request the relevant bodies to reply directly to the Deputy with the information requested in respect of their organisations.