Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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155. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he has updated public procurement guidelines in the context of public bodies purchasing goods and/or services produced and/or developed by Israeli companies. [53533/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy's question concerns public procurement policy which is a matter for the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation.

Public Procurement is governed by EU legislation and national rules/guidelines. EU Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement (goods, services and works) has been transposed into Irish Law in the form of corresponding Regulations - S.I. No. 284/2016 - European Union (Award of Public Authority Contracts).

The Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation has published Public Procurement Guidelines for Goods and Services to provide a comprehensive interpretation of this legal code, to serve as national rules, and to improve consistency and promote best practice in the application of these rules.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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156. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 242 of 23 September 2025, and having regard to the confirmation therein that under Government decisions of 19 May 2009, 2 March 2011, 8 March 2011 and 28 March 2017 all public bodies subject to the 15-day prompt payment requirement must report against a defined set of fields including the number, value and percentage of payments made within 15 days, within 16-30 days, and in excess of 30 days, together with late-payment interest and compensation costs; the reason the format of his Department's consolidated "Government Departments Prompt Payment Returns" was altered from Q2 2025 onwards to exclude the value of payments within 15 days and other mandated data fields that had been reported consistently from at least 2010 to Q1 2025; if he will consider reverting to the previous format in the interest of transparency and alignment with EU open data best practice; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53554/25]

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I refer to the Deputy’s question regarding the format of the Department’s consolidated Government Departments Prompt Payment Returns, and the changes introduced for the Q2 2025 report.

As the Deputy notes, under Government Decisions of 19 May 2009, 2 March 2011, 8 March 2011 and 28 March 2017, all public bodies subject to the 15-day prompt payment requirement are required to report quarterly on a defined set of fields. I can confirm that my Department continues to collect and publish this data in line with the reporting template set out in the relevant Government Decisions. The Q2 2025 return for my Department includes all the mandated fields and in the interest of transparency is available on my Department’s website.

Separately, my Department on a quarterly basis compiles a consolidated report of the payment performance of all Government Departments showing payments made within 15 days and 30 days. The format of the consolidated report was changed for Q2 2025 to show only the percentage of payments made within 15 days and 30 days based on the number of invoices. The reason being that individual Government Departments report the percentage of payments made within specified periods based only on the number of invoices.

I want to assure the Deputy that my Department remains fully committed to open and transparent reporting. The full underlying data for each Department, including all required fields, continues to be published in the individual Departmental returns, which are publicly accessible on the respective Departments’ websites.

My Department established the Prompt Payment Officer Network following Government approval in March this year. Prompt payment performance reporting is a standing item on the agenda of the network. I will therefore ask my officials to consider raising this matter at the next meeting in November for discussion.