Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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163.To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence for an update in relation to the replacement of the Government's Learjet; and if he will make a statement on the matter.[35319/24]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The competitive process for the purposes of delivering a replacement aircraft for the Ministerial Air Transport Service is well advanced with the restricted Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) stage complete and a number of aircraft manufacturers passed to the Invitation To Tender multi-stage phase which is ongoing at present.

A Civil Military Project Team comprising Officials from my Department and the Air Corps has been actively working on the delivery of this project and they are being supported by an external aviation expert Altea, with legal support being provided by the Office of the Chief State Solicitor. The Project Team will evaluate the tender documents and will make recommendations for approval once the various stages of the procurement process have been completed.

As this competition is being conducted on a restricted basis with a procedure for negotiation under the Defence and Security Directive 81/2009/EC it is not appropriate at this stage of the competition to release information concerning the number of participants who have been selected to proceed to the next stage of the competition or to specify the exact timelines as to when that process will be complete. However, the intention is that the acquisition phase will be complete and an award of contract will be made this year.