Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 May 2015
319. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the extent to which suppliers of goods and services remain on a central mailing list for referral in the context of procurement, with the objective of achieving best results for the economy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18662/15]
View answerThere is no central mailing list in existence but a notifications feature exists on the national eTenders procurement portal. It is the responsibility of individual contracting authorities to publish tender notices with an estimated value of more than €25,000. This process is facilitated through the national eProcurement portal www.etenders.gov.ie. This portal is the Irish Government's public platform for advertising public sector procurement tenders. The eTenders system automatically sends out email notifications of tender notices published on the system above €25,000 to registered suppliers who have expressed an interest in the particular type of goods, services or works specified in the tender notice by the contracting authority. This is driven using the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) codes of the European Commission.
The Supplier Register in eTenders holds company information as entered by each supplier. Historically many suppliers have registered their company multiple times and often provided incorrect business profiles. Accurate registration and the correct settings for eNotifications gives suppliers maximum exposure to tendering opportunities in the Irish Public Sector. While significant progress was made during 2014 in cleaning up supplier data, work is still on-going.
The Office of Government Procurement is working with industry representative bodies to promote the engagement of Irish business in public procurement (including ISME, IBEC, SFA, Chambers Ireland, and CIF) as well as the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, InterTrade Ireland and Enterprise Ireland. Last year, for example, the OGP supported two 'Meet the Buyer' events - one in Belfast and the other in Dublin attended by over 1,100 businesses, 20 Go To Tender workshops and 4 Taking Care of Business events with a combined attendance in excess of 2,000 businesses. In addition, the OGP proactively launched a campaign to get more businesses to register on the eTenders system and existing Suppliers to correct their profiles which resulted in 12,300 new supplier registrations in 2014.
