Quality in Public Procurement (Contract Preparation and Award Criteria) Bill 2021 [Seanad]: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-12
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Frankie Feighan (FG), Sligo-Leitrim

I thank everyone for their contribution. Some issues were raised and I will certainly bring them back to my Department. The Bill pre-empts the European Commission’s revision of the 2014 directive. Therefore, it seems the entire Bill is premature. The Commission is in the process of reviewing the public procurement directives. There are clear signals that EU Directive No. 2014/24 will be repealed and a less restrictive regime will be put in place. As such, the legal basis for several of these provisions will no longer apply.
After careful consideration, the Government has decided to oppose the Bill because it could undermine the current ambition, which is delivering the critical infrastructure that Ireland needs and ensuring value for money for Irish taxpayers.
I again thank the speakers who contributed. We all agree that the State should act in the public interest. The intentions behind the Bill for the pursuit of quality as much as price are laudable. However, the Bill would likely have a negative impact on the ability of the State to seek value for money or deliver on the Minister's accelerating infrastructure report and action plan commitments. It introduces inflexibility in the selection of appropriate criteria for a given competition and potential disproportionality in legislating for the fixed weighting of cost in assessing tenders, notwithstanding its inconsistency with the directives.
As the Deputy rightly stated, an evaluation of the cost increase associated with civil procedures in the Netherlands was estimated at 3%. Applying the metric to the national development plan would result in an increase of over €10 billion. This would cancel out the €10 billion equity funding to which the Government has committed, with major energy, water and transport projects.
As mentioned, the proportion of price-only awards in Ireland halved from 2020 to 2022, falling from 24% to 12% in 2023. As of 2025, Ireland is third in the European Union for the lowest use of price-only award criteria.
The Bill cannot help but contradict the Government's commitment to supporting Irish enterprise, in particular SMEs and small family businesses, because it has the potential to compromise value for money, particularly for standardised and commodotised goods and services, adding undue weight to quality and adding undue burdens for SMEs, potentially reducing the number of bidders and overlooking the fact that quality may also be addressed in selection criteria and technical specifications.
Work that will impact reporting requirements, e-forms and the public procurement data project is already under way in the European Commission, as is the revision of public procurement directives. Therefore, the Bill may also introduce conflicts with the current EU legislative framework. There are clear signals that directive 2014/24/EU will be repealed and, as I said, a less restrictive regime will be put in place. As such, the legal basis for several of these provisions would no longer apply. For these reasons, the Government opposes the Bill.
I thank all the contributors for their helpful advice. I look forward to liaising and working with them in the coming weeks and months.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-12