Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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In May of this year, following the successful conclusion of a tendering process, my Department established a new contract for the provision of eTenders, the national electronic tendering platform for public procurement contracts. In doing so, the provision of eTenders transitioned to a new service provider and as a consequence to a different eTenders platform than that which had been in use for the previous 10 years.

The process to establish the new contract and to transition to a different provider’s platform involved extensive consultation and collaboration with national public procurement stakeholder representatives and groups from across the public and private sectors.

Public procurement contracts for tender have been, and continue to be, published on the platform and their associated competitions are at various stages of the procurement process, from ‘open’ (for submissions) to ‘awarded’ (contract awarded) stages. The level and type of ongoing activity demonstrates that the eTenders platform is generally functioning and is capable of accepting submissions from interested bidders.

As with any large scale system, such as eTenders, in particular newly implemented ones, specific issues can arise regarding its use and operation. To that end, my Department have established standard support and service provision processes through which such matters can be signalled, investigated and resolved. In particular I would recommend that any affected parties contact the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) Helpdesk with any specific details in relation to the issue raised, to facilitate further investigation and resolution.

My Department continues to proactively engage with public bodies and businesses in relation to eTenders with a view to continuously improving its usage, service provision and capabilities.