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National Development Plan

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 17 June 2021

Thursday, 17 June 2021

Questions (134)

Thomas Gould

Question:

134. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his views on whether all contracts for capital works laid out in the National Development Plan should be required to contain social clauses which require contractors to hire a certain proportion of their staff from the live register and create a certain number of apprenticeships. [31969/21]

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Written answers

The appropriateness of including social considerations needs to be examined on a contract-by-contract basis and there needs to be sufficient flexibility to allow each individual contracting authority to decide what, how, and when social considerations can be used. It is not intended to include social clauses incorporating employment activation measures in public works contracts generally since there is a substantial risk that doing so would cause considerable displacement of those already in employment. It is a matter for individual contracting authorities to ensure that their public procurement activities are discharged in line with procurement rules and procedures. The Office of Government Procurement (OGP) supports contracting authorities in this regard by making them aware of their legal and policy obligations in respect to public procurement.

The OGP has been promoting the inclusion of social considerations. To further support the incorporation of social considerations into public procurement, the OGP published Circular 20/2019: Promoting the use of Environmental and Social Considerations in Public Procurement. The Circular highlights the possibilities for Departments to deliver wider social and environmental aims through public procurement including in relation to employment and training opportunities for disadvantaged groups, disability access, promoting social inclusion and social enterprises.

To help policy makers and practitioners understand how procurement can be used to facilitate the advancement of existing social policy objectives as well as the wider context and implications of including them in particular procurement projects, the OGP published an Information Note on incorporating social considerations into public procurement in December 2018 which is available on ogp.gov.ie. A cross-departmental Social Considerations Advisory Group, since re-titled the Strategic Procurement Advisory Group, was also established in March 2019.

These developments promote and facilitate the inclusion of social considerations in a structured manner and are aimed at helping policy makers and procurement practitioners understand how procurement can be used to support advancement of existing social policy objectives, the wider context and the implications of including them in procurement projects.

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