Public Procurement: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-29 ============================================================ Cathal Byrne (FG), Cultural and Educational Panel I very much welcome the Minister of State back to the Chamber and congratulate him on his recent appointment, which I have not had the opportunity to do in this Chamber until today. This is a very important issue. I think it is often forgotten just how much money flows through these public procurement policies and through the Minister of State's Department. When I am out speaking to voters and residents in Wexford, one of the key things they say to me is that they are fed up with and tired of how much money they feel is being wasted on certain projects. The Minister of State's Department has a unique opportunity to restore trust among people that the money that is being spent is being spent wisely, that there are a series of procedures and processes there and that there is a firm grip on how hardworking taxpayers' money is being spent. With the new office that has been set up, the centralised Office of Government Procurement, the fact that data will be collected across all Government Departments and all agencies and put in one central place where things can be managed and that there is a clear set of eyes over how the money is being spent is really important. The second key point I will make about this whole area is that in order to drive value for taxpayers, it is not just about the lowest costs but also about what is the best value. Too often we have seen contracts that have come in at the lowest price and then, when the work starts, things are more complicated than they originally seemed and inevitably the price goes up. Value for money means value at the end, when the job has actually been paid for, not just the cheapest price when the job is being tendered for. That came across very much in the Minister of State's contribution, that this is what he is driving. Another key issue here is making these large Government contracts available to small businesses in order that they are able to come forward and tender for contracts. It should never be the case that taxpayers' money being spent on a large procurement contract is available exclusively to large companies while the small businessperson who set up their business and who is looking to make the jump from being a small business to being a medium-sized business does not have access to those contracts. I very much welcome the opportunity that will be available to small businesses through the new eTenders that the Department is rolling out in making information available. People running small businesses do not have hours and hours to be trawling through large tender documents. They are under enormous time constraints and time pressure. They need easy access to be able to say, "Yes, this is a contract we can do", "No, that is a contract we cannot do" or even "This is a contract we could do if we were to recruit a few more people, grow our business and really put an effort into securing that contract". Unfortunately, however, those small businesses, sole traders and small companies do not have the time to trawl through tender documents that are complex and detailed and in respect of which they are not in a position to swiftly make a decision as to whether it is something they can apply for. I also want to highlight a concern I have had in the seven years I have been a public representative for the people in Wexford, which is about the prevalence of consultants and consultants' reports and the large amounts of money being spent at local authority and national level commissioning external consultants' reports. If every project, particularly an infrastructure project, will require a set of environmental analyses and technical data, and given that this will be repeated again and again, is there an opportunity to bring that in house rather than externally tendering it and hiring different consultants on every project repeatedly? For example, if there is a road project, a bridge project or another infrastructure project that can be delivered by the local authority, is there not an opportunity to bring that in house? Finally, I want to underscore the need for suppliers to these contracts and these tenders to have the opportunity to tender again rather than having to apply individually each time and put in the name of their business, the address of their business and their VAT number, that the portal that will be rolled out for eTenders is simplified, that it will store that data and that suppliers would effectively have a digital passport whereby they are able to log in and that detail is already captured by the website. That has been available in the past and it is very important that it is available again in the future. I encourage the Minister of State, as part of rolling out this roadmap for the digital development plan, to incorporate that in it. I wish him and his officials the best and thank him for coming into the Chamber to give us an update. We look forward to seeing how this will be rolled out over the months and year ahead. Perhaps the Minister of State will come back to us over the coming months again and give us a further update when that is necessary. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-29