Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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161. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade 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. [55059/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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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 and supported by Procurement Guidelines 2023 published by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP).

The Department participates fully in on-going initiatives of the OGP focusing especially on achieving procurement savings, including the use of central framework agreements for the provision of different categories of supplies and services. The Department also runs its own procurement tender processes for goods and services that are not covered by central OGP frameworks.

The Public Service Reform Plan 2011 set out that purchase orders for €20,000 or over by a Government Department or Agency should be published online. The Department publishes quarterly reports of payments/purchase orders over €20,000 in the prescribed format. Procurement procedures are kept under constant review to ensure that they are line with best practice, guidance and the legal framework.