Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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126. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if his Department has any current contracts with an organisation (details supplied) or its subsidiaries in any EU Member State, the UK, the USA, South America, India or Asia; and if so, the value of those contracts. [51037/23]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am advised by the Defence Forces that their records indicate that there are two contracts currently in place with the organisations referred to in this PQ. Total spend over the last 5 years on these two contracts amounts to €4,063,273.

The principle of competitive tendering for Government contracts is used by the Department of Defence and the Defence Forces for the acquisition of goods and services. This is an EU law requirement. Central to those procedures is the requirement to allow fair competition between suppliers through the submission of tenders following advertising of the tender competition on the e-tenders site and on the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), where appropriate.

Such tender competitions are open to any company or country, subject to the terms of all UN, OSCE and EU arms embargos or restrictions. There are no such restrictions or embargos in place on Israel or Israeli companies.

The Department of Defence carries out its procurement functions in accordance with the legal rules in place and is obliged to follow the established procurement principles for the selection of economic operators with regard to the award of contracts.