Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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361. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the details of contracts of €25,000 or more that have been awarded by his Department or bodies under his aegis that were found to be non-compliant with procurement guidelines in 2018, 2019, 2020 and to date in 2021; the value and nature of the contract work carried out in each case; the year of each contract in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11474/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) currently operates in a number of locations in Ireland and in over 90 locations overseas.

The policy of the Department is to operate competitive tendering as standard procedure. In order to achieve best value for money, a Central Procurement Section operates to co-ordinate all contracting activity and to promote best practice in procurement through management and monitoring of corporate contracts.

Procurement takes place in the context of Directive 2014/24/EU and supported by Procurement Guidelines published by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP). The Department participates fully in on-going initiatives of the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) focusing especially on achieving procurement savings, including the use of shared framework agreements for the provision of different categories of supplies and services.

On occasion, a small number of Department contracts do not undergo a competitive process due to exceptional market or other circumstances. In some cases, non-compliant contracts arise due to the proprietary nature of the goods or services or where the original tender contract period has expired and a new tender process has not yet been completed for specific reasons.

Below are details of non-compliant contracts for 2018 and 2019 only as returns for 2020 and 2021 are not yet available. To comply with DPER Circular 40/02 the Department prepares an annual statement of contracts awarded without a competitive process where the value of the contract exceeded €25,000 (excluding VAT). This is submitted to the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on an annual basis by 31 March of the following year as part of the Appropriation Accounts. Work is currently ongoing on compiling this information for 2020 and it will be published with the Appropriation Account in due course.

Non-Compliant Contracts more than €25,000 (excl. of VAT) undertaken without a competitive process

Year ending 2019

Year ending 2018