Vol. 897 No. 2
1. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the total Supplementary Estimates that are now expected to be introduced for 2015; how this breaks down across individual Departments; if additional expenditure is required because of inadequate expenditure provision at the start; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40741/15]
I wish to ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the total Supplementary Estimates that are now expected to be introduced - there is reference to 13 of them, without any figures attached so far, on today's Order Paper - how this breaks down across individual Departments, if additional expenditure is required because of inadequate expenditure provision at the start of the year, and if the Minister will make a statement on the matter.
Consistent with the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact, SGP, the pace of economic growth and greater than forecasted tax receipts this year have allowed the Government to allocate, on a prudent basis, additional amounts to expenditure in priority areas.
The Revised Estimates volume 2015 set out total gross voted expenditure for the year of €53.231 million. This level of expenditure was based on the assumption of coming in below the excessive deficit procedure deficit target of 2.9% and the level of revenue forecast at the time of budget 2015 in mid-October 2014. As detailed in the Expenditure Report 2016, published on budget day last month, the gross voted expenditure forecast outturn for 2015 was revised to €54.875 million, with the Government expenditure ceiling changed to reflect this adjustment.
This extra funding of over €1.6 billion for gross voted expenditure this year has allowed the Government to target additional expenditure in areas experiencing increased demand and pressures. Importantly, with Ireland moving to the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact from next year, this additional 2015 expenditure has been fully taken into account when assessing compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact obligations. While at this stage the definitive amounts in respect of the Supplementary Estimates have yet to be finally determined by all Departments, it is expected that the aggregate amount will be consistent with the additional amount included in the forecast outturn that we set on budget day.
The general government deficit target for 2015 under the excessive deficit procedure is 2.9% of GDP. Budget 2015 set a deficit target of 2.7%, but based on the forecasts published on budget day, the new deficit we have set for this year is revised down to 2.1%.
The backdrop to additional spending this year is 2015 tax revenues exceeding forecast by over €2 billion, delivering a deficit of 2.1% of GDP, and the significant expenditure reductions required since 2009 to return sustainability to the public finances. Therefore, the additional expenditure represents a responsible approach towards ensuring that public services are adequately funded to meet social and economic objectives, both this year and next year.
Essentially, the answer the Minister has given and his opening sentence, in straightforward English, is, "We have it so we will spend it". That is precisely what he has said here today. "We have it so we will spend it," is the new mantra from Deputy Howlin in the run-up to the general election. I indicated in previous debates the extra €7.3 billion the Minister is pumping into the Exchequer over the past 13 months, between last year's Supplementary Estimates, this year's Supplementary Estimates, and the extra funding in budget 2015 that he did not expect a month before the 2015 budget, to try and win the next election. The Minister concluded by saying that they have extra revenue so they can spend it.
I am surprised that this Government has not learnt any lesson from the past. Some might be critical of that policy on previous occasions, but after what we have been through, for this Government to come in here today and say, "We have it so we will spend it" is reckless and shows the Government has learnt nothing.
The Deputy, as usual, is completely wrong. The deficit we set for this year was a demanding deficit to reach the target of below 3% of GDP. When we framed the budget for 2015 in October of last year, it provided for a deficit of 2.9%. In the spring, we reduced that to have an even tighter deficit of 2.7%. The actual outturn, including the additional expenditure that I have outlined, will be a deficit of 2.1%. Nobody in their wildest imaginations four years ago would have thought that by the end of 2015 we would have a deficit of 2.1% of GDP. In fact, we are outperforming other much more developed economies that have not gone through the economic crisis that we have had. It is absolutely prudent to keep a tight focus on reducing the deficit to 2.1% but at the same time to respond to pressures in our economy to provide decent funding levels to health and other areas, such as education, that the Deputy would demand in normal circumstances.
The Minister published expenditure ceilings this time last year for a three-year period and he blew them out of the water on budget day. We were told they were sacrosanct. He has now increased them by €1.6 billion. He has increased the expenditure ceilings by a quick announcement on budget day.
The Minister states he had an extra €2.2 billion in tax revenue and that almost €2 billion of it will go on additional expenditure. The logic is that if one of the big multinationals had thrown in an extra €1 billion or €2 billion in corporation tax this year, the Minister would have spent most of that also, and still maintain the deficit, on increasing underline, base expenditure for this year and next year going forward. The Minister is making the capital mistake of increasing baseline expenditure on the basis of once-off tax receipts that were received this year that he knows he cannot guarantee will happen in subsequent years, and he is back to the mantra, "We have it so we will spend it". If that is the way Deputy Howlin wants to win the election, that is his call.
I note the Minister has not given us the figure for the 13 Supplementary Estimates even though they are published on the Order Paper. Health, Social Protection and Environment, Community and Local Government are not in the list. I will bet, at this stage, that the Minister knows but is refusing to tell us because I asked him for the figures by Department and he has not given them.
It is interesting to note that the Fianna Fáil official position is against additional expenditure this year, which runs counter to all its Private Members' and special notice questions baloney.
They are against any relief or any further expenditure that we have set out such as the winter initiative, ensuring the fair deal is provided within a two-week scenario or ensuring the summer works scheme is funded to allow deficiencies in the built environment of our schools to be addressed. Fianna Fáil is against the provision of these, even though we are more than meeting the stringent targets we set ourselves in terms of our deficit. We have a recovering economy and more people at work. This is a sustainable income stream because, as the Tánaiste indicated to the House yesterday, just below 2 million are at work. The Fianna Fáil position is, like the European Commission, that every cent of that additional revenue should be used to retire debt and, therefore, our deficit should be eliminated entirely rather than give some relief to people under pressure. I reject that view.
2. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will set out in monetary terms the income, including pension-related benefits, to be reinstated to current and former Ministers under the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill, FEMPI, 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40796/15]
Yesterday, as we debated the FEMPI legislation, I brought forward amendments that would allow the Minister the opportunity to ensure serving and former Ministers would not enjoy a pay or pension bonanza under it and he refused to accept them. My question today is for him to set out in monetary terms the extent of this payback for serving and, most particularly, former Ministers, taoisigh, tánaistí, etc.
On foot of decisions taken by this Government, serving Ministers, as I indicated clearly yesterday, will not benefit from any pay restoration as set out in the FEMPI Bill 2015. Former Ministers will benefit only to the extent that all former public servants will benefit in the Government's highly progressive programme of pension restoration. There is no such thing as a bonanza for anybody.
The Haddington Road agreement, HRA, included commitments to restore the pay of serving public servants who took an additional pay cut in 2013. Following negotiation between public service employers, unions and associations, an extension of the HRA, the Lansdowne Road agreement, was negotiated and ratified by the public service unions. The FEMPI Bill includes the necessary legislative provisions to give effect to the terms of the agreement. Notwithstanding the provisions included in the Bill, which apply to all public servants, including elected public servants, the Government, in approving the terms of the Lansdowne Road agreement, decided that Ministers and special advisers should not avail of the pay restoration and pension-related deduction, PRD, now provided for in the FEMPI Bill.
The Government has decided on a highly progressive amelioration of the specific measures applied to the pensions of former public servants. I have ensured that the proposals included in the Bill to reduce the impact of public service pension reduction, PSPR, will significantly favour low paid public service pensioners. Specifically, the FEMPI Bill provides for a maximum part-restoration of €400 in 2016, an additional €500 from 2017 and €780 from 2018. That is for everybody; nobody will get more than that. The Bill also retains the increased rate of 28% PSPR applied to that amount of pension in excess of €100,000 which was enacted by the Bill I brought before the House in 2013.
Of course, the commitment in respect of serving Ministers is not set out in the legislation; it is voluntary in nature but never mind that. How will Mr. Brian Cowen, former Taoiseach, who is currently struggling manfully on a pension of €134,000 fare or John Bruton, former Taoiseach, on a pension of €126,000? What of "We have it so we will spend it", former Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, on a pension of €108,000? All of these will be in receipt of a restoration of pension under the Minister's legislation, which is a disgraceful notion. For him to try to pretend that this is progressive in any way is laughable and well he knows it. What about Ivor Callely, who has a conviction for mobile telephone expenses fraud and who is on a pension of €62,000, or Mr. Ray Burke, who has a conviction for tax offences, yet is in receipt of a pension currently of more than €95,000?
We are over time.
The Minister deems it appropriate in a time of emergency, as his legislation sets out, to reinstate and to bump up those disgraceful pension levels.
The Deputy plays the politics of this but she knows full well, because I have said it and her own legal advice will confirm it, that emergency legislation cannot selectively penalise a particular cohort of public service pensioners. It would collapse the Bill constitutionally. The Deputy knows that but that does not stop her playing politics with it. Accordingly, the proposed amelioration under the Bill of the PSPR will apply to all impacted retired public servants on a basis that is indifferent to the vocational background of the pensioner, as it has to be because that is the constitutional advice we have.
It is interesting that during the debate last night, Deputy Healy made a passionate speech from the Opposition benches in which he said his advice was that pensions enjoyed preserved rights under the Constitution and any reduction, once we begin to emerge from the emergency, would collapse this Bill. I have, therefore, taken a prudent and careful line. The maximum restoration anybody will get on either a low or high pension will be the same but I have ensured that there will be a 28% reduction for those on the top pensions and that it will not be touched by this legislation.
The advantage conferred on former Ministers and taoisigh is self-evident in the eye-watering level of pension they enjoy. I know the Minister disagrees with me on this point. Those pensions are indefensible, and were always indefensible, but particularly so given the era of austerity that has been visited on people throughout the country, which was delivered by some of the very same individuals who are on grossly excessive pensions. I do not know how anybody could justify a pension of €134,000 for the Taoiseach who presided over calamity, crash and chaos but, my God, anybody who argues that this pension should be bumped up by a further €1,600 or €1,700 is truly demented.
The advantage is clear.
The Deputy-----
We are over time.
The Minister has been prudent about protecting the advantage conferred on that small number of politicians.
The Deputy will peddle the political argument knowing that it is fatally flawed constitutionally and legally, having no regard for the Constitution and the decisions of the courts of the land and having no regard for anything but the narrow political advantage of trotting out names in the hope that this will accrue some support for her party. One cannot select a cohort of public sector pensioners and say, "I will remove their pensions". Will the Deputy make that commitment? We are running up to a general election in the next few months. Will she turn the Constitution and the law on its head and say that she will, regardless of the advices, withdraw those pensions from people who have this preserved pension right? I have gone as far as we can to reduce those pensions in the FEMPI legislation but as we emerge-----
No, the Minister has not. It is emergency legislation.
The Deputy does not like to hear it so she shouts down. As we emerge from the crisis, there will be decisions to be made because one day somebody will take a challenge against the FEMPI legislation and we will have to be on robust ground. I will ensure as long as I am in charge of it that we are constitutionally sound on this.
The Minister is on anything but robust ground. His disregard is for the taxpayer.
3. Deputy Stephen S. Donnelly asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the reason his Department allocated just €24 million to the Department of Education and Skills in budget 2016, outside of pay restoration agreements, from a total fiscal space available of €1.5 billion; and the reason he is directing expenditure to that Department, between current and capital expenditure, to fall between 2015 and 2016. [40743/15]
Why, out of a total fiscal space in the budget of €1.5 billion, did the Minister just direct €24 million or less than 2% of that to the Department of Education and Skills? Why does the budget documentation show that he has directed that total funding to the Department between this year and next year should fall by €29 million?
The Deputy should note that, as set out in the expenditure report I circulated on budget day, the underlying increase in gross funded current expenditure is, in fact, €170 million. Excluding Lansdowne Road agreement related costs of €43 million, the increase in the allocation for the Department of Education and Skills is more than five times the figure mentioned in the Deputy's question. This reflects the fact that in estimating the year-on-year change in educational expenditure between this year and next account needs to be taken of the non-recurrence next year of a 2015 cash cost of €127 million in relation to an accrual in respect of pay and pensions. This is set out in the documentation.
The expenditure report for next year sets out that an additional €24 million, as the Deputy rightly said, has been allocated to new measures. In specific terms, the budgetary and Estimates decisions will provide for an additional 2,260 teaching posts. These include 810 extra teachers to meet demographic pressures, 300 extra teachers to reduce the staffing schedule in primary schools from 28:1 to 27:1; 550 extra teachers to reduce the staffing schedule in secondary schools from 19:1 to 18.7:1; and 600 extra resource teachers for special needs education.
Against the backdrop of the available fiscal space, the share allocated to expenditure increases and spending pressures in other areas, the additional funding resources allocated to education represent a significant commitment by the Government to the development and improvement of the education sector. This must by allied with the significant capital announcement of almost €3 billion made by the Minister for Education and Skills during the week.
Under the Government, the higher education system has seen cuts of 20% per student; there has been a 15% cut in the number of resource teachers since 2012; we have the second highest class sizes in the European Union; more than half of teachers under the age of 30 years are on short-term, part-time and substitute contracts; and there has been a 25% cut in funding for DEIS schools since 2010. Page 3 of the Minister's budget document lays out in black and white that of the €1.5 billion available at a time of fiscal and economic expansion and in the context of all of the cuts at all of these levels of education, the total amount for new expenditure measures is €24 million. This is in contrast with the figure of €561 million for a reduction in USC. Similarly, on the next page of the Minister's budget document, we see that gross current expenditure will increase by €44 million, while gross voted capital expenditure will decrease by €73 million. The net impact on the Department of Education and Skills, according to the Minister's budget document, is minus €29 million. Why has the Minister done this in the context of a decision to allocate more than €560 million through one tax cut?
As it is always a mistake to prepare one's speaking notes before hearing the answer to a question, I will repeat my answer. There is a non-recurring pay cost of €127 million which must be taken into account when making the comparison between the figures for 2015 and 2016. This should be clear. The Deputy's figure is wrong, as I have explained already. We have protected education expenditure throughout the crisis. With regard to capital expenditure, we have built more schools than the previous Government did in boom times because it was a focus. We have protected the pupil-teacher ratio throughout the crisis and are improving it. As I said, we will allocate 2,260 additional teaching posts next year. This cannot be met from the sum of money about which the Deputy has spoken. We must look at once-off expenditure items which occur in a single year and will not recur before a year by year comparison is made, but, of course, the Deputy knows this.
I thank the Minister. He has said my figures are wrong, but the figures I have read out in black and white are taken from his budget document. They most certainly are not wrong.
The Deputy understands basic economics.
To suggest class sizes have been protected under the Government is an insult to every teacher, principal, child and parent in the country. Class sizes have not been protected by the Government, as well the Minister knows. I will ask the question one more time. I accept the argument about one-off non-recurring payments and I did hear it. Nonetheless, the Minister had €1.5 billion available and education is the single biggest driver of economic stability and growth to ensure equality of opportunity for children. Of the figure of €1.5 billion, the Minister decided that €24 million was enough to allocate to the education system, but €561 million was an adequate amount to give by way of a tax cut. Why does he believe he should only allocate an additional €24 million from the figure of €1.5 billion as opposed to more than €560 million through one tax cut?
The Deputy said he followed the argument on non-recurring costs, but he then went back to the figure of €24 million, the argument about which he says he understands. We have protected class sizes. We did not worsen pupil-teacher ratios in any of the budgets we introduced. Even in the teeth of the crisis we protected them and have now improved them. With the very first easement of pressure on us, we improved the pupil-teacher ratios, the result of which will be an additional 2,260 teachers next year. On the quality of the school environment which is equally important, on the capital side we have prioritised investment in schools. We built schools in the worst of times.
The Government cut capital investment by €70 million.
We have set out a further investment of €2.8 billion to ensure schools of the highest calibre will be available. Of course, we also have an IT programme to ensure every school has high quality broadband.
4. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the expected annual scope for additional expenditure in future years; the projected growth rate on which this is based; the circumstances in which this scope would be increased; how departmental expenditure overruns will be dealt with now that Ireland is in the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40742/15]
What is the expected annual scope for additional expenditure in future years and the projected growth rate on which it is based? What are the circumstances in which this scope would be increased? How will departmental expenditure overruns be dealt with now that Ireland is part of the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact?
The major progress achieved in securing fiscal stability means that from the beginning of next year Ireland will exit the corrective arm of the Stability and Growth Pact and become subject, as the Deputy knows, to its preventive arm. The core of this fiscal rule is the medium-term objective to achieve a balanced budget in structural terms, whereby allowances are made for once-off temporary factors and the impact of the economic cycle on the public finances. Compliance with the medium-term objective will require improvement in the structural budget at a rate greater than 0.5% of GDP each year until the medium-term objective is achieved.
As the Deputy is very well aware, the second pillar of the fiscal rules relates to the expenditure benchmark which supports the achievement of the medium-term objective by explicitly setting the rate, aligned to the estimated potential growth rate of the economy, at which aggregate public expenditure can grow, other than when the relevant expenditure is funded through discretionary revenue measures.
From next year onwards, increases in overall general Government expenditure must be based on the requirements of these pillars of the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact. This is the law. The ministerial expenditure ceilings for next year have been set in a context that will deliver on this objective. From 2016, this means that additional resources in excess of these ceilings may only be allocated in a manner that is consistent with the pact. Consequently, unplanned expenditure leading to Supplementary Estimates from 2016 may not be met by additional revenue arising from the economic cycle but rather would need to be met through expenditure savings, efficiencies elsewhere or additional taxes.
The current estimates of the gross and net fiscal space for the period to 2021 were set out in the budgetary tables on budget day. These estimates are not final but comprise forecasts based on the number of projections, including GDP deflators, benchmark reference rates and convergence margins forecast by the Department of Finance for each of the years beyond 2016. The actual deflator, reference rate and convergence margin values used by the Commission to assess compliance with the rules each year beyond next year will be based on its estimates as set out in the forecast in each relevant year.
I thank the Minister. The Department of Finance documents on budget day indicated a €500 million fiscal space would be available in 2017. I have never seen a document produced by the Government on fiscal space which has ever turned out to be anywhere within €1 billion of the actual mark. We will take this remark as genuine in so far as it was made, in the full knowledge that nobody ever expects it actually to happen. Will the Minister give us the actual rate for the growth about which we are speaking?
It used to be a ten year average and we are told it has changed. Could the Minister give us a more precise explanation? Even the fiscal council was unaware of those changes some time ago. The Minister said the once-off income we had this year, like the corporation tax, could not be used for Supplementary Estimates in future years.
They are not once-off, as the Revenue has confirmed.
The Minister does not know they will happen next year. The Government took this once-off money from the multinationals to increase spending, because it could. However, the Minister has said it will not be allowed next year and that if a Supplementary Estimate is required, it will have to be funded by additional taxes or charges. Could this include extra charges in the health service to make up for overruns in the health service?
The Deputy is correct in that the Department of Finance is conservative in determining the fiscal space. His criticism is that we have done better than we expected every time we made a projection. Had we erred on the other side, the country, as well as the Deputy, would have something even stronger to say. We have been prudent and, perhaps, overly conservative in estimating the pace of recovery. We have an additional €2 billion in tax revenue over what we forecast for this year. It is not once-off. We are 70,000 shy of 2 million people at work. Next year, we will have more than 2 million in work. It is a permanent feature of the economy, please God. As the Deputy saw in the plan we published last week, we intend to have an additional third of a million more people in work over the coming years. This will generate additional revenue. It is not once-off. It can be used to deal with the expenditure pressures we have discussed. The Deputy should not talk about windfall or once-off money. The Revenue has indicated that the corporation tax is not a once-off.
The Minister is not quite right. The biggest element of the extra tax that came in this year was corporation tax, of which 80% comes from the multinational sector. Nobody in the Government has any control over what cheque the multinationals feel like writing here to suit their global requirements. Although it is out of our control, the Minister is factoring it into future plans. When the figures came out, the Department of Finance officials said they could not fully explain them.
Given the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, if France needs a Supplementary Estimate next year to deal with the crisis, is the Minister saying EU rules will not allow it to happen? Is he saying if various European countries need additional funds to deal with the immigration crisis, the EU rules will prevent it from happening? Let us be real. Every expenditure ceiling the Government introduced here was made redundant the next time it was examined. While there are rules, how flexible are they when push comes to shove?
Ireland has been very vigorously engaged in the base erosion and profit shifting, BEPS, process with the OECD. Many corporations want to ensure they are very solid regarding it and it is a new and welcome paradigm in corporation tax payment. Given that we are a very clear and transparent country regarding the rate of corporation tax we pay, more and more companies will decide to pay their corporation tax in Ireland, and it will be a permanent feature. The Deputy’s question whether the Stability and Growth Pact rules are flexible enough is very valid. Like everything in the EU, it will be a matter for discussion. The Deputy asked a very relevant question, whether France would be allowed to break the rules in order to provide for the security of the state. Personally, I think France will do it. We must address it at European level. We want to apply the rules because they make sense but they must also be flexible enough to deal with issues such as those the Deputy has set out.
5. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will set out the guidelines in place to ensure best practice in public procurement; the oversights that exist in the process of the awarding of Government contracts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40797/15]
My question relates to guidelines in place to ensure best practice in public procurement and oversight in that regard. I raise the question in light of specific concerns arising from a meeting that occurred between bidders for the supply of personal alarms to older people and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, and Deputy Brendan Ryan in the course of the procurement process.
I do not have knowledge of any particular issue such as the one the Deputy indicated. Public procurement is governed by well-established EU and national rules and guidelines. The aim of the rules is to promote an open, competitive and non-discriminatory public procurement regime which delivers best value for money. EU directives on public procurement require that public works, supplies and service contracts above certain thresholds must be advertised on the Official Journal of the EU and awarded on the basis of objective and non-restrictive criteria. For works contracts, the threshold is €5.186 million; for supplies and service contracts awarded by Government Departments, the threshold is €134,000; and for the remainder of public bodies, the threshold is €207,000. The threshold for supplies and service contracts of entities operating in utility sectors such as water, energy, transport and postal services is €414,000. For contracts below these thresholds, the general requirement is that they be advertised on the national public procurement website, www.etenders.gov.ie or, depending on value, awarded on the basis of a competitive process of direct invitation to an adequate number of suitable suppliers.
In line with this, the following national rules apply to below EU threshold procurements. Supplies or services costing less than €5,000 in value may be purchased on the basis of verbal quotes from one or more competing suppliers. Contracts for supplies or services between €5,000 and €25,000 in value should be awarded on the basis of responses to specifications sent by fax or e-mail to at least three suppliers or service providers. Goods and general services with an expected value of €25,000 or more should be advertised on the eTenders website while for ICT procurements, the expected value is €10,000 or more. It is the responsibility of each contracting authority to ensure they comply with EU and national rules in relation to public procurement.
I thank the Minister. On 10 December 2014, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, and Deputy Brendan Ryan met to discuss a senior alerts scheme. The meeting took place nine days after the deadline for the submission of tenders for grant-funded telecare services for the elderly. Two other people attended the meeting, Mr. Gerry Bunting, managing director of TASK Limited, and his colleague, Ms Bernadette Dunne. They were subsequently successful-----
Sorry, Deputy. You must be very careful. You cannot imply these things without evidence being produced. This is Question Time, not an opportunity to make statements.
The two individuals attended the meeting with the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, and Deputy Brendan Ryan.
The Deputy is not listening to me. She should learn the rules of the House on Question Time. She cannot make accusations here about meetings that may or may not have happened.
This turn of events will more than likely give rise to litigation.
Maybe so but stick to your question in the meantime.
Mr. Bunting is a constituent of Deputy Brendan Ryan.
Would you please refrain from making allegations against people who are not present to defend themselves?
The Minister is present and I ask him to familiarise himself with the case.
He is dealing with Question No. 5.
Does ministerial interaction with persons with an interest in a live procurement and a meeting such as the one I described comply with standards of openness, transparency and a non-discriminatory regime?
I have no knowledge of the issue the Deputy raises. I will not give general answers that could be applied to a particular case about which I have no knowledge whatsoever.
I do, and when the initial approach was made for the meeting, the Minister’s Department refused the meeting.
I ask the Deputy to stick to the question. We are not dealing with a meeting about which nobody seems to know anything. The Deputy’s question was to ask the Minister to set out the guidelines in place to ensure best practice in public procurement.
Plenty of people know about the meetings.
I do not know about them, and it is none of my business. I am here to ensure there is fair play in respect of people’s good names.
Other bidders who were unsuccessful know about the meetings.
I am not going to allow the Deputy, or anybody else, to take people’s good names and imply wrongdoing without proper notice being given.
The Deputy has asked a parliamentary question and I ask her to stick to it.
The issue arises in circumstances where the Department initially refuses a meeting cognisant of the need to be open, transparent and non-discriminatory. Is it appropriate for a Minister to meet bidders who may be, and were in this case, the successful bidders in the process subsequently?
Again, I ask the Deputy to please adhere to the practice of this House. The relevant Minister is not present and the Deputy cannot expect the Minister answering questions to be able to give an answer. This is Question Time.
It is.
The Deputy will have to find some other way of raising these issues but she cannot do so in Question Time.
There is no better way to test the efficacy of the EU directives and their application in this State-----
Would the Minister like to reply?
-----than to test specific cases on which there has been public commentary-----
If there is wrongdoing, as the Deputy says, she should bring it to the attention of the authorities.
-----to test against those very benchmarks so we, as parliamentarians, may establish whether they are being applied or not. That is my purpose here.
Public procurement practices are subject to audit and scrutiny under the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993 and the Local Government Reform Act 2014. Accounting Officers, not Ministers, are publicly accountable for expenditure incurred. Individual contracting authorities are responsible for establishing arrangements for ensuring the proper conduct of their affairs, including the performance of standards of good governance and accountability with regard to procurement.
