Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 November 2020
298. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the full list of public procurement contracts will be provided for capital works that have exceeded €10 million, disaggregated by number of tender bids, value of each bid, name of each bidder, name of successful contract winner and final cost of the project, in tabular form. [38566/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe information sought by the Deputy is not recorded centrally in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for public works contracts.
However, contracting authorities are obliged to publish contract award notices on both the eTenders website www.etenders.ie and the Official Journal of the EU (OJEU) for all contracts above certain thresholds. National policy currently requires all contracts with a value in excess of €25,000 to be published on the eTenders website (as per Circular 10/14) whereas for contracts to which the EU procurement directive applies, Article 50 of the directive requires a contract award notice to be published in the OJEU within 30 days of the award of the contract. The procurement directive applies to all public works contracts with a value in excess of €5.35m.
The Office of Government Procurement, who administers the eTenders website, are in the process of compiling a report with details of the successful contractors; contract award values; and date of publication of contract award notices. The report will be compiled on the basis of contract award notices with a value of €10m and above, published by contracting authorities in the OJEU. The report will be sent onto the Deputy within a week.
It is important to note that:
- The management of the tendering process for a public contract and the administration of the contract once awarded is a matter for each contracting authority. The complete data on individual public works contracts is held by the contracting authorities concerned.
- It is the responsibility of individual contracting authorities to publish contract award notices following the signing of a contract. This process is facilitated through the national eProcurement portal www.etenders.gov.ie, which is managed by the Office of Government Procurement (OGP).
- The OGP has no role in the validation of any information input by a contracting authority on the eTenders website.
The following is a summary of the data that is being compiled:
- The report will cover the period from 2016 to date.
- The report will include data for public works contracts that are majority exchequer funded i.e. more than 50%.
- A number of framework agreements will be included in the report. The value included is the estimated total value of the contracts under the framework agreement over its life, which is generally 4 years but there is no guarantee that the full value of the framework will be drawn down. Each of the framework members will be listed in the report.
All data provided will be based on the information input by the relevant Contracting Authorities.
