Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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332. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question Nos. 329 and 331 of 24 June 2025, to the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, which confirmed that responsibility for analysing collapsed or re-run procurement competitions rests with individual contracting authorities, if her Department has estimated or recorded the number of procurement competitions since 2019 that did not result in a contract award due to insufficient submissions, legal challenges, disqualification of bidders, or internal cancellation, recorded or estimated the administrative or financial cost associated with collapsed or re-run procurement competitions during the same period and undertaken any analysis on the underlying reasons for failed competitions and the extent to which outcomes might be improved through better planning, clearer specifications, earlier market engagement, or other procurement reforms; and if not, if her Department will now consider putting in place such monitoring systems, in light of the administrative cost and service delays associated with failed procurement procedures. [40389/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The information sought by the Deputy in regard to the number of procurement competitions that did not result in contract award ran by the Department of Education & Youth is not routinely collated by my department. However, my department adheres to all OGP guidance which outlines the various stages of the procurement process from specification, through to selection and award stages. Furthermore, my department has developed and is developing considerable procurement training resources and materials to further support internal units to meet these requirements.

My department is not currently planning to develop such a monitoring system, any step to record the status of a procurement competition from conception to conclusion would likely require the allocation of considerable administrative resources as well as the development of bespoke IT systems and capabilities. However, my department is planning to undertake a review of its existing Procurement Policy and Corporate Procurement Plan which will examine the effectiveness of my department’s procurement practises, procedures and oversight systems.