Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

661. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if there are any technical, legal, operational, or policy constraints preventing his Department, when publishing quarterly reports of payments or purchase orders over €20,000, from including additional columns that link each payment to its underlying procurement process specifically tender/contract title; name and address of the awarded contractor/supplier; contract award date; contract duration; expected contract value (excl. VAT); maximum contract value (excl. VAT); the unique identifier from the relevant contract award notice; and where such constraints exist, to provide details explaining his Department’s current process for reconciling each reported payment with the corresponding published contract award notice on eTenders. [55066/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

In line with Circular 05/2023 (Initiatives to assist SMEs in Public Procurement), contracting authorities are required to publish contract award notices for all procurements over €25,000 (exclusive of VAT), including any contract awarded under a Framework Agreement on completion of the award whether the procurement was advertised on eTenders or not.

My Department issues in the region of 31,000 payments annually for goods and services. Purchase orders over €20,000 (ex VAT) are published quarterly at (www.gov.ie/en/department-of-social-protection/collections/purchase-orders-for-20000-or-above/) on Gov.ie.

Once a tender competition is concluded and a contract awarded, expenditure is managed in an internal financial management system. This system is separate to the national tendering system (eTenders). This is also separate to the internal contract register used to record contract details.

With regards linking expenditure with the procurement process, the Department must work to the technical specifications and functionality of the financial management software it utilises. This information is not linked to public procurement details on eTenders. The merging of all systems would be difficult and expensive due to technical and operational reasons.

The Department has an internal process which monitors all payments made and all purchase orders over €20,000 are checked quarterly to monitor compliance with procurement procedures.