Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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25. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the reason she has not engaged with a company (details supplied) on the tender for local employment services in relation to the advice secured from third-parties on procurement, the financial model, the impact on citizens and the sourcing of funding for redundancies if they arise. [60197/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department is procuring a new Local Area Employment Service over two distinct phases. Phase one of the process for procuring new employment services involved seven counties in the Midlands and North West who were without a Local Employment Service. Contracts were signed last December and services are in the process of being mobilised. Phase two of the process has now commenced, with the publication in December of a request for tender for seventeen lots covering 19 counties. Services for this phase will begin in July 2022.

My Department has had repeated and intensive engagement with the relevant stakeholders in recent years. Following visits to every service provider across the State in 2019, my officials ran information sessions in 2021 and 2022 as part of the procurement process of both phases of the Local Area Employment Service.

These sessions were open to all potential tenderers. Records indicate that a representative from the South Tipperary Development Company attended the latter session.

In addition, an open information session was hosted by officials from my Department last November, where approximately 150 interested parties participated with an extensive questions and answers session.

My Department and I have also engaged extensively with the Irish Local Development Network, as representative body for nearly all development companies, including the South Tipperary Development Company. As part of this ongoing process of engagement, my Department has asked the ILDN to brief its membership on plans for the procurement of new employment services. In early December, I met with representatives from all the local development companies and the ILDN where this issue was discussed.