Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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188. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to provide data on the final cost of public procurement tenders where his Department or agencies under the aegis of his Department acted as the contracting authority in each of the past five years, indicating the number of tenders where the final cost was under, on, or over the contract award value at the time of tendering, in tabular form. [7506/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is responsible for two Votes - Vote 27 (International Cooperation) and Vote 28 (Foreign Affairs). There are no agencies under the aegis the Department.

The policy of the Department is to operate competitive tendering as standard procedure in order to achieve best value for money. Procurement takes place in the context of Directive 2014/24/EU supported by the Procurement Guidelines published by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP). These set out a range of procedures governing the procurement process through tendering to the award of contracts.

In line with the revised circular 05/2023, the Department applies the use of a public tender for any procurement with a value over €50,000 excluding VAT. This threshold was increased from €25,000 during 2023 to facilitate SME participation.

The Department also participates fully in on-going initiatives of the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) focusing especially at achieving procurement savings, including the use of shared framework agreements for the provision of different categories of supplies and services.

Details of all procurement contract payments made for goods and services valued at €20,000 or more are published on Gov.ie which is a central website for government services and information. The requested contract payments for the past five years are published on the Government website ().

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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189. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the total amount spent in excess of the contract award value for all public procurement tenders within his Department and agencies under the aegis of his Department in each of the past five years. [7524/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is responsible for two Votes - Vote 27 (International Cooperation) and Vote 28 (Foreign Affairs). There are no agencies under the aegis the Department.

The policy of the Department is to operate competitive tendering as standard procedure in order to achieve best value for money. Procurement takes place in the context of Directive 2014/24/EU supported by the Procurement Guidelines published by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP). These set out a range of procedures governing the procurement process through tendering to the award of contracts.

In line with the revised circular 05/2023, the Department applies the use of a public tender for any procurement with a value over €50,000 excluding VAT. This threshold was increased from €25,000 during 2023 to facilitate SME participation.

The Department also participates fully in on-going initiatives of the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) focusing especially at achieving procurement savings, including the use of shared framework agreements for the provision of different categories of supplies and services.

The Department regularly reviews public procurement practices to ensure that its public procurement functions are discharged in line with the standard accounting and procurement rules. In the event of contract being identified that are not in compliance with public procurement practices details of these are provided in the annual return to the C&AG and are published in the usual way as part of the Department’s Appropriation Account in the Statement of Internal Financial Control (SIFC). In respect of 2023 eleven non-compliant contracts identified in the SIFC the Department has taken the following action:

• Eight contracts (€739,677) which had previously been awarded under a competitive tender process were extended beyond the original contract date without a competitive process. Seven of these contracts (€680,228) have been tendered and new compliant contracts awarded, and the remaining contract has not been renewed by the Department; and
• Three contracts (€152,959) were awarded without a competitive tendering process. These 3 have been tendered and new compliant contracts awarded.