Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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707. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality 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 or contract title; name and address of the awarded contractor or 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. [55063/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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My Department publishes quarterly reports of purchase orders over €20,000 in line with the Public Service Reform Plan (2011). The information provided in these reports is broadly in line with that published by other Departments.

These reports are produced based on the information available on the Department’s financial management system. This financial management system is separate to the national tendering system (eTenders), it is also separate to the management information system my Department uses to record contract details.

The benefits of linking expenditure with the procurement process through having greater connections between data from the tendering (pre-award) and the expenditure (post-award) stages of public procurement transactions are recognised, and my Department has begun a process to identify a suitable replacement solution for our current management information system used to record contract details.

Public procurement is governed by EU and national rules and my Department ensures that appropriate procedures are followed for all procurement activity. Departments are obliged to ensure that public procurement is discharged in line with the standard accounting and procurement rules and that contracts awarded represent best value for money.

As the Deputy is aware, procurement within my Department is subject to audit and scrutiny under the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993 and is also subject to internal audit.