Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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179. To ask the Minister for Finance if his Department has any current contracts with any Israeli state agency, any Israeli-based company or any company based elsewhere in the world which is owned or part-owned by any Israeli state agency or by any Israeli-based company; and if so, the value of those contracts. [51044/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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My Department does not hold any current contracts with any Israeli state agency.

Regarding Israeli based companies (or any company based elsewhere in the world which is owned or part-owned by an Israeli state agency or by any Israeli-based company), the information requested is not collated by my Department. My Department maintains a register of all live contracts in accordance with Circular 40/2002 to assist in forward planning and exercising appropriate internal control and arrange for the publication of relevant details where required, however this register does not include information on the ownership of companies.

The ‘National Public Procurement Policy Framework’ issued by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) in November 2019, sets out the procurement procedures to be followed by government departments and state bodies in accordance with EU rules and national guidelines.

In addition, my Department has its own internal policy and guidance documents to assist staff to comply with all procurement regulations.

The principle of competitive tendering for Government contracts is used by my Department for the acquisition of goods and services. This is a requirement in accordance with the Directive on Public Procurement and the European Union (Award of Public Authority Contracts) Regulations 2016.

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 eTenders site and on the Official Journal of the European Union, where appropriate. Such tender competitions are open to any company or country, subject to the terms of all UN or EU restrictive measures. No such restrictive measures are currently in place on Israel or Israeli companies.