2026-02-12

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, for being here as he has responsibility for the area of procurement. I thank Senator Alice-Mary Higgins for her work on this legislation. Senator Higgins has worked for the past eight years on this specific legislation. Her commitment to the area of procurement stretches back to before she was elected to the Seanad, however, to her time in civil society when she recognised, as so many others have done, that the issue of procurement has such a wide-reaching impact and effect on so many other areas of how we work in the public sector and that it needs improvement. What is at the core of this Bill is that public procurement is decided essentially on the criterion of lowest cost only. It is the default mechanism by which public procurement is decided. This Bill seeks to introduce quality as a much stronger criterion. It does not abandon lowest cost but recognises fully that is a hugely important factor in the process. It introduces quality as a measure which should be included in the process. This is all doable within the directives and legislation in any case but, unfortunately, it is not the custom in the design of our procurement processes. That is what we are seeking to address. I thank Senator Alice-Mary Higgins for all her work in bringing the Bill to this Stage. It has been through all Stages in the Seanad and now comes to the Dáil on Second Stage, ready to go to the finance committee if I can convince the Government to reverse its decision to oppose this Bill. I am really proud to build on the work that Senator Higgins has done and bring it to the Dáil floor. Before I talk about the details and provisions of the Bill and plead again to the Government to support us in bringing this legislation through to the next Stage, I will talk about procurement more broadly, what it means and why it is such an important part of all of our lives. Procurement is very far-reaching and covers everything we buy as a State. As a party, we were trying to figure out how to make procurement sexy, and I do not know if we can, but one way of trying to help people understand it a bit better is that it is basically how the State does shopping. It is how it goes out and buys and purchases things, be those services or goods. We are all very familiar with the big projects and the scandals, essentially, that have hit this Government over the last number of terms. They include the national children's hospital, CervicalCheck, the hot school meals programme recently, and in so many different areas. Having listened to previous Topical Issue debate, which was raised by Deputy Doherty, it sounds as if procurement is at the heart of another issue that has been raised on the Dáil floor. Procurement also reaches into many of the smaller things. I have worked in the public sector and I have been an Accounting Officer in a State agency, so I am very familiar with the procurement process and how deep it is in the heart of every public sector body. It is an area of expertise within public sector bodies and it is important that we empower people who procure on behalf of this State to count not just price in the design of their criteria but also introduce quality. Besides the big examples I gave, I will introduce some smaller ones that people might not be as familiar with or might not remember. One that I will mention is the contract for library books back in 2012. A contract drawn up at that stage essentially excluded smaller providers from bidding within the contract structure. Ultimately, the contract went to a UK company. This decision gutted bookshops across the nation. There were a huge number of lay-offs and closures. A bookshop in Sandyford in my constituency had to close down as a result. One of the bookshop owners said: What galls me the most is the tender notice stated candidates should have access to, and experience of, dealing with small, local publishers and authors and have in-depth of the Irish publishing scene. I fail to see how a UK chain would have any knowledge of little known publishers in Ireland. This decision was made purely on price and it is really short-sighted. This has been happening for many years. The example I cited was raised with me when I spoke with the Minister's colleague, Deputy Lahart. When I spoke about this process, he immediately came back to me with an example. That has been my experience because I have been talking about this to many colleagues over the past two weeks. They all have examples of how the current procurement process has failed us and how they see the value in this legislation. Another example we have discussed was one that came from a carer who talked about the fact that the HSE provide for her, in the provision of her work, incontinence pads, which she then uses on her clients. She said because the HSE switched providers, she had to start changing incontinence pads for her patients four times a day instead of twice a day because the quality of the product dropped with the new provider. I genuinely cannot think of a more human example of how public procurement reaches into the depths and intimacy of our lives than that exact example. For that patient and client, it means that twice as many times a day and twice as many times across her life, she has to experience the discomfort of having that incontinence pad changed. That seems like such a small example but for somebody in that situation, it is a mammoth way in which her life has changed. Let us have a look at the numbers when we talk about procurement because Ireland plans to spend €275.4 billion in the next five years under the national development plan. We know that is already in addition to the €19 billion a year we spend on public procurement. This is so wide-reaching. I will now talk about the provisions because, as I mentioned, this is about shifting the culture of how public procurement is done from one that values cost only to one that should value quality. The key provisions and sections in this Bill are sections 3 and 4, which outline exactly how quality should be considered within the procurement process and that when quality is not a consideration, how those exceptions should be applied. We fully appreciate and acknowledge that there are times when lowest cost only is a metric which is applicable to a particular procurement process. This was very much a piece of work that Senator Higgins did in reshaping the legislation to say we want you to think about quality and if you are not thinking about quality, you need to explain why not. There is a mechanism by which you have to raise up the flag pole of any public sector body why you are not thinking about quality and you have deemed that this process should be based on lowest cost only. That is exactly the kind of accommodation that we seek to see when we are developing this kind of legislation, and in response to Government concerns when it was going through the Seanad and in her interactions with the Office of Government Procurement, OGP. I should add, by the way, that this has been done in consultation with the OGP throughout these eight years of work and, indeed, with the co-operation of the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, in the development of the legislation itself. Sections 5 and 6 then go on to deal with certain other elements. The public sector duty was introduced into the State in 2014. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014 sets out that public bodies have to have regard for human rights and equality in the work that they do. Section 5 allows for this to be a part of the procurement reporting process. Section 6 also emphasises that social consideration should be another part of it. It is a simple Bill. It is a straightforward Bill. It is a Bill that is essentially in response to the 2014 directives that determined how Ireland would go about its procurement and how every member state, indeed, would go about procurement. Unfortunately, in that instant, Ireland chose to interpret it in such a way that led us to this default situation of lowest cost only, and this legislation seeks to correct exactly that. We are lucky because we have a Dutch experience where this type of legislation has been introduced and we have really strong data which captures what happened there. What we see in that Dutch example is that 73% of the contracts still go to lowest cost only. We are not trying to say that it should not be that big a feature. We know that it is, but we want to make sure it allows us to take account of the quality criteria as well. Within that Dutch model, the other important figure is that they found that there was a 3% increase in the procurement process costs - not in the projects themselves; let us be clear on that - which is a marginal one, and there was a 2.4 times equivalent benefit reported by those actors. I will conclude and pass over to my colleagues to talk about specific examples in this area by pleading with the Minister of State to support this Bill and reverse the Government's decision to oppose it. Any concerns the Minister of State has about money - I am pre-empting what he might say in his contribution - can be dealt with on Committee Stage or the money message process. Any concerns the Minister of State has about those finance considerations can be dealt with there. What I want to see is the Minister of State putting his money where his mouth is in terms of saying that he wants us to offer solutions and that he wants to work with us because I could not find a clearer example of exactly that. I plead with the Minister of State to support it.

I call Deputy Feighan.

No, there is five more minutes.

I have to check formula-wise. Deputy Gannon is down for interaction but I am not sure the Deputies can share time. The Deputies are not sponsors of the Bill, or are they?

We usually share time at the start of a motion.

Yes, I did ask.

I think you can.

The Deputies can finish out their time. They have five minutes. It is two and a half minutes each, if that is what they wish.

It is fair to say I am about to speak on a Bill which, at first, I did not fully understand. It is not one that, when you sit down to read it initially, will get your blood boiling and make you excited, but that is exactly what good administration should be about because when public procurement becomes exciting, it usually means that something has gone wrong, and we have seen too many instances of that. This Bill probably shapes people's lives in a way that they will not fully understand just yet. This is about how the State spends billions of euro every year on schools, hospitals, roads, IT systems and services. It all flows through procurement rules. Under EU law, contracts must be awarded on what is called the most economically advantageous tender and that can mean best price and quality combined or it can mean lowest price only. Ireland chose for a strict lowest price only when we transposed that law and this Bill clearly says that maybe we should rethink that. The Bill says that in principle contracts should be awarded on the best price-quality ratio and that if a public body decides that price alone is enough, it should explain why. That is by no means revolutionary. It is not anti-market. It is not red tape gone mad. It is asking the State to pause for a second and ask whether we are buying the cheapest thing or the best outcome. It also proposes that for major public works above €5.35 million-----

Sorry, is the Deputy's colleague coming in?

Yes, but I thought the Ceann Comhairle was going to give us back the time.

We cannot help it. We are all very excited about this Bill.

We are very excited.

We did not think we would be this excited, to be honest, as Deputy Gannon said. I nearly had a heart attack when I thought I was going to be talking on public procurement because it is not something you think about every day but, as the Deputy says, it is vitally important. As education spokesperson, I have to say we can see this in our schools every day. Where we see that is when, for example, €5 billion has been spent on prefabs over the last five years. Prefabs are a stopgap or are put in because things are not going right in schools - where buildings have not been built or are falling apart or whatever. What we see now is prefabs being used for special classes. This is not a good use of public money because it costs €5 billion and they are there for years. We need to see forward planning for school buildings. As Deputy Gibney has already said, we see it in hot school meals - a vital universal programme that is rolled out in primary schools. We need to see it in secondary schools as well. The procurement there should not be on the basis of the lowest cost. The cost is the cost. We know what it costs for hot school meals. I would argue that we should increase that, but it has to be about quality. The outcome of public services in this country is vital to the health and well-being of every person. We can see that from education and health. What is really important is that it is not a race to the bottom and it is not a race to make sure that we are undercutting or able to provide the best tender or whatever. It should be about quality because quality public services are what every citizen in this country deserves. It is vitally important that we are able to explain where taxpayers' money goes and that we are using it efficiently and effectively. I thank Deputy Gibney and Senator Higgins for all their work on this. As their video on Instagram said, this is not the sexist Bill that will come to the floor of the House but it is hugely important and it impacts every part of our lives. When we do not see that every day, that is when it is working well, as Deputy Gannon said. We have so many examples from my constituency, such as the children's hospital, of it going desperately wrong and children ageing out of a service because it has not been effectively managed. I thank Deputy Gibney and Senator Higgins for all their work,.

I thank the Deputies for giving me the opportunity to discuss the Government's position on the Second Stage of this Private Members' Bill. The Bill, brought forward by Senator Higgins and Deputy Gibney, is well intentioned. However, the priority for this Government is delivering the critical infrastructure that Ireland needs while ensuring value for money for Irish taxpayers, which this Bill could hinder and not help in delivering. The Government has concerns regarding the Bill's potential impact on the ability of the State to seek value for money in providing critical infrastructure and that it would increase the level of bureaucracy and complication in the public tendering process, ultimately creating additional regulatory burdens with little to no benefit in terms of outcomes. The Government is seeking to reduce those barriers and streamline procurement processes so projects can be delivered effectively in this country. With the current set of rules in place, according to the European scorecard 2025, Ireland is in the top three for use of price-quality ratio, with only 12% awarded on price only. The remaining 88% of tenders are awarded based on quality criteria. The Bill seeks to give further effect to Directive 2014/24/EU on public sector contracts to promote the use of social considerations and the best price-quality ratio, in relation to procurements to which the directive applies, prohibiting the award of contracts on price or cost as the sole award criterion unless the Minister makes a declaration that it is appropriate. This would require the Minister to issue guidelines on qualitative, environmental, social, human rights and equality considerations that may arise in public contracts and create a system of reporting to the Houses of the Oireachtas. I will now set out the reasons behind the Government's concerns relating to what the Bill seeks to do. The Government is undertaking an ambitious programme of reform and accelerating infrastructure with a committed spend of €275 billion on the national development plan, NDP. The associated projects in the NDP already factor quality into their tenders as determined by detailed specifications and ongoing contract management. Therefore, the current approach seeks to ensure quality while keeping value for money as paramount in the delivery of the NDP and does not require additional regulation. The Bill being proposed is similar to a scheme introduced previously in the Netherlands which reportedly increased costs by approximately 3%. Applying this to the delivery of the NDP could potentially increase costs to the taxpayer by up to €10 billion. The Bill further complicates the procurement process. It introduces inflexibility in the selection of appropriate criteria for a given competition, which has the potential to compromise value for money, particularly for standardised goods and services where it might not be needed. The Bill is also expected to create delays, given the increased risk of litigation that results from the reliance on subjective social criteria. The European Commission is in the process of reviewing the public procurement directives underpinning this Bill and there are clear signals that Directive 2014/24/EU will be repealed and a less restrictive regime put in place. As such, the legal base for the Bill would no longer apply. I will now expand further on the Government’s immediate priority, namely, delivering the critical infrastructure that we need to resolve the housing crisis. Since the Bill was put on the Order Paper, Government approved the accelerating infrastructure report and action plan. Pillar 3 of the plan, co-ordination and delivery of reform, introduces a new central co-ordination role for the Department, as envisaged by the programme for Government, and features reforms to procurement and approvals that will more effectively convert funding into outcomes. It will also build the capacity of the construction sector and enable better sequencing of major projects, ensuring that infrastructure is delivered on time, within budget and with minimal disruption. Procurement challenges are one of the key barriers the plan identifies, with lengthy timelines and complicated processes hindering our ability to deliver value for money and making procurement less competitive. Action 25 seeks to address these barriers through changes in the capital works management framework, CWMF, and improved procurement standardisation, professionalism, centralisation and training. Considerable amendments to the CWMF have been introduced to increase flexibility, including price variation, limitation of liability and indexation for inflation. Further amendments will be introduced later this year to support increases in construction sector capacity and innovation. This will be through the adoption of modern methods of construction, design contests and early collaboration. The overly adversarial nature of procurement, driven by risk transfer objectives, poses challenges to delivery. Therefore, further changes will be made to support a more collaborative approach with tenderers, involving alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and changes to the inflation framework, with the longer-term objective of a greater sharing of risk. It is essential the public service operates in a co-ordinated and effective way and delivers value-for-money and sustainable savings for taxpayers. This Bill contains several provisions that will hinder delivery of the action plan. 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. Additionally, and following on foot of advice from the Office of the Attorney General, the Bill contains several provisions which would be likely to increase the risk of litigation. This would significantly lengthen the procurement process and delay the delivery of critical infrastructure. This goes against the Government’s work to overcome barriers to infrastructure delivery by putting in place further barriers and strengthening the opportunities for legal challenges, which will likely increase costs to the taxpayer. The Bill proposes contracting authorities award on the basis of the most economically advantageous tender rather than price only, unless sanctioned by a Minister or Accounting Officer. While I appreciate the concerns surrounding the use of price-only in procurement processes, such a provision would be disproportionate and add to the administrative burden of buying generic commonly acquired goods and services. The European procurement directives and their transposing national instruments already permit public sector bodies to prohibit the award of contracts on the basis of price or cost only and restrict the use of price-only to certain categories of contract. The Bill misrepresents the procurement landscape. Many price-only awards are the second part of a two-stage award process, where the first stage has been an assessment of quality. The Office of the Attorney General advises that the use of a limit on the price criterion would need careful consideration in order to demonstrate that it remains within the MEAT criteria. As stated above, EU directive 2014/24 expressly permits member states to restrict the use of price to certain categories of contracts or prohibit the use of price or cost only as the sole award criterion for public contracts. However, in contrast, the directives do not expressly permit member states to specify a target quality ratio for specified projects. Recital 89 of EU Directive 2014/24 might also be seen as against permitting this proposal. These recitals emphasise the freedom of the contracting authority to select the economically best tender. Recital 89 of EU Directive 2014/24 states: This can be obtained by using the terminology ‘most economically advantageous tender’ as the overriding concept since all winning tenders should finally be chosen in accordance with what the individual contracting authority considers to be the economically best solution among those offered... Regarding implications arising from imposing additional reporting obligations on contracting authorities related to their function as public bodies pursuant to section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014, contracting authorities will be required to record steps taken to comply with section 42 of the Act. In particular, information relating to the preparation, allocation and granting of contracts will need to be included in the Article 84 report. Reports to the Minister on the contracting authority's performance on these matters will also be required, with the Minister given the role of designating appropriate forms for such returns. There do not appear to be any restrictions in the procurement directives to prevent obligations of this nature being imposed on contracting authorities. Further, it is noted this would be a clear, unambiguous obligation imposed by primary legislation. Additionally, mandating how a contracting authority should conduct a procurement process should be avoided, especially via as blunt an instrument as primary legislation. Contracting authorities need to be free to decide the best process for them, and any legislation should facilitate that. This is also true for construction projects, where quality is largely achieved through good design and specification before the procurement process and in the subsequent contract management. The Government has used policy circulars and guidance on these matters to recognise the need for flexibility and the specific circumstances of each individual procurement. While quality must be afforded due consideration in tendering processes, this must be done in the context of available budgets and in a proportionate manner. It has to be acknowledged that public procurement facilitates the State to be in a position to provide much-needed public services in a sustainable manner, and reducing the public buyers’ choices for assessing tenders could impact on the sustainability of such service provision. It should also be noted that Ireland scores highly among EU member states in the use of price-quality ratio. In the last round of reporting available, the European Commission’s Single Market and competitiveness scorecard 2025 shows that in Ireland the proportion of price-only awards halved from 2020 to 2022, falling from 24% to 12%. Ireland had the third-lowest incidence of price-only awards. As noted, this figure of 12% includes those awards for which quality was assessed at an earlier stage. Therefore, the Bill would introduce complications and barriers to infrastructure delivery for a problem which does not really exist in Ireland, and in respect of which improvements are already happening. Complementary to and supporting the work on accelerating infrastructure, a key priority for the Department is the programme for Government commitment to value for money in State spending and to review the public procurement process to make it more transparent and work to ensure greater participation from SMEs in Ireland. The Department is in the final stage of drafting the national public procurement strategy to set out the strategic direction of public procurement for the next five years. A key focus of the strategy is advancing socially responsible public procurement, supporting sustainable public procurement and the UN sustainable development goals. A public consultation for the strategy was launched in March 2025 and ran until May 2025. This included three roadshows in Dublin, Cork and Athlone, which were attended by a variety of stakeholders, including public bodies, industry bodies, utility suppliers, social enterprises and a dedicated supplier and SME webinar. Senator Alice Mary Higgins, this Bill’s author, was supportive of and engaged with the consultation for the strategy. The strategy is a more appropriate policy instrument to progress the well-intentioned objectives in the Bill. As mentioned, the programme for Government seeks to ensure greater participation from SMEs in public procurement through the SME advisory group, which I chair and which meets quarterly. My Department engages directly with SME representative bodies. The Bill contradicts the Government’s commitment to support Irish enterprises, in particular SMEs and small family businesses, because it has the potential to compromise value for money, particularly for standardised and commodified goods and services, adding undue weight to quality, adding undue burdens for SMEs, potentially reducing the numbers of bidders, and overlooking that quality may also be addressed in selection criteria and technical specifications. The European Commission’s focus regarding procurement is on the simplification of the current complex legal code and a reorientation of procurement to act as tool for steering investment and increasing competitiveness. In seeking to deliver this, it began an evaluation of the procurement directives in December 2024. Officials from my Department have engaged in this evaluation process at all levels and have facilitated the process through stakeholder workshops, targeted consultation and direct engagement at Commission level to best represent Ireland’s interests.

It is a bit regrettable that we did not have a copy of the Minister's speech when we started but I am sure that can be addressed for future debates. I am pleased to see this legislation. I understand it was first proposed by Senator Higgins and the Civil Engagement Group in the Seanad. I thank them for their work on this very important issue. I also thank the Deputies who brought the Bill forward for debate in the Dáil. This legislation builds on work done by my colleague Deputy Mairéad Farrell who, in 2021, introduced her policy report, Towards A New Strategy For Progressive Procurement, and followed that with her Transparency and Social Value in Public Procurement Bill 2024. For Sinn Féin, this is a very important issue. We believe that where the Government is spending taxpayers' hard-earned money, it should be aware that it is a significant player in the market and a driver of quality or, indeed, of low standards. That choice is the Government's. This legislation would ensure the Government makes those choices in favour of decency and quality, not just the lowest common denominator and the lowest possible price all of the time. How their money is spent is important to people. Obviously, they want to see value for money and of course they are aghast, as I am, when they see the costs for the national children's hospital spiral out of control. Of course, they want to see that value-for-money element. They also want to know that their money is being spent in pursuit of decency. The Government is a major player here. How it spend money really matters. I know from my previous work in a trade union that we had disputes with the Government, and in some instances its agencies, in relation to trade union recognition, so riddle me this: how can one arm of the State say, through the Labour Court, that there should be a collective agreement, while the other arm of the State can say it will continue to do business with a company even though it does not respect workers' rights or the determinations of the Labour Court? Whenever these arguments were put to various Governments made up of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and, more recently, Independents and the Green Party, the answer that came back was the Government had to be careful because it is charged with spending taxpayers' money so it has to ensure we get value for money. Value for money does not always mean the lowest common denominator or the cheapest possible option. Value for money, in many instances, actually means spending money where workers' rights are protected and in a way that is decent and a driver of quality. The Government is indeed a big player in this market. I should not be a bit surprised that this Government is opposing this legislation. As I and others have said, this Government is allergic to accountability. Transparency is a different world from where this Government exists. This legislation is very simple. The Minister of State sought to convolute the issue and make it sound like it was more complicated than it is. In truth, however, this legislation is very simple. It puts quality as well as price into public procurement decision-making. The Minister of State extolled the virtues of his Government but he did not mention its greatest hits of procurement. He failed to mention the €330,000 bike shed, the €1.43 million security hut for Leinster House or the €7 million of taxpayers' hard-earned money spent on a failed IT system for the Arts Council. This is all before we even consider the massive cost overrun of the national children's hospital. The Minister of State expressed concern about the potential this legislation has to put up the costs. He said this had happened in Holland where costs went up by 3%. Jesus, there has been a 300% increase in the cost of the national children's hospital. The Minister of State seems unbothered by that, but 3% is going to keep the Government up at night with worry. I cannot accept the arguments that were put forward. The legislation seeks to limit the practice of lowballing. I have seen that in action. I have seen companies, large global multinational corporations and SMEs go in with figures that are absolutely unattainable. They know that. They did it with home helps. They know the decision will be made on the basis of money. They go in with the lowest possible price and are then sure they will get the contract. Thereafter, whose business is it? It is the business of the poor unfortunates who have their time cut back. It was public procurement policy and the outsourcing of the home help services that led us to what is called the 15-minute call. Previous to that, a person got an hour with their home help. It was a minimum of an hour. Because of the Government's procurement policies, that time was whittled away and companies are now in pursuit of the big value-for-money lowest common denominator of 15 minutes for an elderly person. What can you do in 15 minutes with an elderly person? You cannot wash, shower or change them. You can barely have a conversation with them. There is not a cup of tea and no dinner. You could probably not light a fire in 15 minutes. That is where ignoring quality, standards and human rights gets us. I am long enough in here to know not to plead with the Minister of State because I know well that once the decision is taken, there is very little that can be done. However, even at this stage, I urge the Minister of State to go back to the senior Minister and discuss this legislation with him. As has previously been indicated, there is nothing the Minister of State has cited as a concern that could not be teased out, addressed and dealt with on Committee Stage. I would go so far as to say that is exactly what Committee Stage is for. It is where we scrutinise legislation and make it as good as it can be. In truth, it is the principle of this legislation, not the outworkings of it, that would enshrine transparency, accountability, human rights, equality and quality. That is what the Government has a problem with. The problem is not with the mechanics of the legislation because the Minister of State and I both well know that this can be worked out. The problem relates to transparency, accountability, quality and human rights. The Minister of State should have been honest about that. He is not a bit concerned about a potential 3% rise in costs. Would you go away out of that? Nobody is buying it. Nobody for a moment believes that it is a real or genuine concern because we know, in truth, that costs spiral out of control all of the time. What the Minister of State did not address was how he is going to build in quality, human rights, transparency and accountability, because they are not there at the moment. He read his script well, which is fine, but he did not demonstrate how these aspects are going to be built into public procurement. As it stands, the State is a major player. It was stated previously that this is hard to understand. It is not. Anyone who spends money in a shop understands how it is done. Anybody who spends any money at all understands how this is done. We understand the purchasing power of our own wages. We understand that every year a campaign is run asking people to support local and to drive local jobs. We understand that when we spend money, we are supporting either ethical procurement or procurement that falls well short of that. The outworkings of Government policy result in a lack of transparency and accountability and the lowest possible standards for the people who depend on the Government for support. It is a very simple thing to say, but it is a very important thing to do. The Government should spend taxpayers' money where decency, workers rights, accountability, transparency and quality are the watchwords and not continue with its current practice, the result of which we do not just see all around us, we pay for.

I thank Deputy Gibney for bringing forward this important Bill and Seanadóir Higgins for originally instigating it. I am very happy to support the objectives behind the Bill. As has been said, it is very straightforward that price should not be the only consideration when awarding State contracts. That is a no-brainer, not least because I am dealing with major problems, as I am sure others are. The national children's hospital is the obvious big example, but, at local level, I am dealing with an apartment complex that was delivered as social housing. The tenants in it tell me that it is going to have to be pulled down. They want out, although they have only been in it for a year. That is just dreadful. After waiting for a decade or more to get their social homes, the building is rotten with mould and damp. There is water ingress in the car park that is in the vicinity of the electrics. It is a mess. As stated, people have only been living there for a year. That shows why quality is important. Somebody can just bid on price, but if they are cowboys, they can cut corners. I have heard anecdotally and seen some evidence in social housing provision of specifications being lowered. In fact, in the instance I am talking about - what has happened needs to be investigated - the developer originally planned to build it for the private sector and when it was contracted by an AHB to deliver social housing, the specifications were lowered. I think that is what actually happened but I am just speculating. The Bill proposes that there should be a 50:50 quality-price ratio for large projects. Often, people might bid low on price but you get a higher quality for a higher price. The one with the higher quality may often end up being lower in the end because we know that sometimes it is the cowboys who engage in the race to the bottom and the type of lowball bidding that gets them the contract, and then it ends up costing a lot more. They have the State over a barrel because they got the contract and the State feels it is in too deep to say anything and they can ratchet up the price. I do not know if it was mentioned, but I was just reading an article about the watchdog - the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC - that refers to cartels that are rigging their bids for State projects. The article mentions areas like construction, but not just construction, where companies are working together to see how they can bid up the price or co-ordinate in order to get the best price from the State for contracts. In the context of what is proposed in the Bill, it is eminently sensible to have these considerations much higher up the agenda when we are contracting out or procuring projects. Bríd Smith, the former Deputy, introduced a Bill in the previous Dáil to ensure that there should be no competition on wages and conditions of employment when it comes to tendering for State contracts. I will take the example of public transport and Go-Ahead. Wages and conditions are significantly less favourable for workers in Go-Ahead, which is providing public transport services. That is also why the company finds it more difficult to get drivers and why their buses are more unreliable. They do not have enough drivers because they pay them poorly. Dublin Bus is not much better, but it is a little better in terms of its treatment of bus workers, mechanics and so on. Ultimately, that impacts on the quality of the public bus service because it is determined by price competition. What they are competing in respect of is, essentially, a race to the bottom in terms of the treatment of employees. That is consequently very stressful for the workers, who are under pressure. There is a box system, and there are people on the radio who say that drivers either have to slow down or speed up because of traffic congestion, which is completely out of their control in any event. This is all to meet certain criteria. Essentially, privatisation is undermining the wages and conditions of workers. I am happy to support the Bill. Whenever the State is considering outsourcing, it should also consider whether it would be better for it to do something directly. I will mention something that is topical. Kevin Reynolds from RTÉ was on "Morning Ireland" earlier. He stated that workers are now voting no-confidence in the management of RTÉ, although they are really pointing through that to Government policy. Essentially, the ability of RTÉ to produce public service broadcasting is being dismantled. They are absolutely right. It will all be outsourced to independent private companies to do the job of public service broadcasting. Kevin Reynolds rightly made the case that private companies will not want to make a lot of the public service broadcasting programmes that we need because they would not consider it profitable or important, or they would be wary of the legal risks involved. They might not have resources necessary to make them even if they wanted to, so the stuff that we need our public service broadcaster to do will just not happen. Under the guise of reforming RTÉ, the public service broadcaster, we are actually dismantling it. The workers are very angry about that. They are absolutely right to be. I tried to highlight the consequences that can have in areas like the film industry where conditions are affected. We pump huge amounts of money into film production companies and the employment rights and conditions of workers are not fully vindicated, even though large amounts of public money are being invested. These are just some examples. We must consider whether we should be doing this ourselves directly rather than going out to tender in the first place. Would we have more control over the process? Could we guarantee quality and the right pay and conditions of employees? These are all considerations, rather than increasingly defaulting to outsourcing these things. I will say – it may be an ideological point – that the privatisation of a lot of things that used to be done by the public sector is an ongoing agenda, one we have seen over the last 20 or 30 years. Things that used to be done by the public sector are increasingly outsourced to private companies, with very questionable benefits and, in many cases, serious adverse consequences at all levels for workers, including the pay and conditions of workers. It also affects things like tax revenue. I remember when I was out supporting the pickets of bin workers of a privatised bin company, Greyhound Recycling. It is a service that used to be carried out by Dublin City Council. They pointed out at the time that Greyhound Recycling, the private company they worked for which treated them so poorly they felt the need to go on strike, was tax resident in a tax haven. Should that not be a criterion we look at? We are awarding contracts to companies that do not pay tax here or are actively trying to avoid paying tax. A huge amount of public money is going into their pockets. A lot of the private sector, which goes on about entrepreneurial ability and all the rest of it, is entirely dependent on State money. It is kind of ironic. There is often this counter-positioning of the private sector versus the public sector. In truth, however, a huge amount of the private sector is completely dependent on money from the public sector. We should at least demand quality and proper treatment of workers.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. I commend Deputy Gibney on introducing it to the House. I thank Senator Higgins for introducing it and shepherding it through the Seanad. I know a huge amount of work was done in the background on this. Senator Higgins obviously had extensive engagement over the years with businesses, representative groups, trade unions and broader civil society. This Bill received cross-party support. I believe it received unanimous support in the Seanad, which is testament to the work Senator Higgins did. It is, therefore, deeply disappointing that the Government is opposing the Bill on this Stage. Like others, I encourage it to reflect on that position. This Bill is definitely one for the policy nerds but it also seems to be stating the bleeding obvious. We all know in our personal lives the pitfalls and trade-offs that are involved when choosing the lowest cost option for anything, whether it is in a small and insignificant context like avoiding the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu or choosing to actively buy something Fairtrade in the supermarket. In doing so, we are making a choice about the provenance, quality and rights of workers behind these products. The choices we make are important. This applies even when we go on to bigger and more important choices in our personal lives, such as choosing the provider that will carry out work on our homes or the individual who will carry out a medical or dental procedure on us. It also applies when it comes to buying a cheap flight. If we choose the cheapest option, we are going to have to pay extra for an assigned seat, early boarding or flexible travel times. We all factor quality, safety and durability into our everyday spending decisions. Why are we not doing this with our public procurement? I cannot see any reason any government would not support this Bill. We all profess to be obsessed with ensuring our public funds are spent wisely and appropriately. We have seen too many incidents where that has not happened, as others have alluded to today. While we all want to see public projects being delivered faster and more efficiently, focusing on quality rather than just cost at the tendering stage may force those who are preparing tenders to look around corners and identify potential pitfalls or additional costs at an earlier stage rather than, as happens so often, providing us with multiple surprise obstacles and bills at a later stage of the process. This Bill has the potential to improve and speed up the delivery of public projects and critical infrastructure. It is fair to say that our public procurement system has not always served us particularly well. As has been noted by others, the lowest price model often results in longer term costs. Often, we see a contract being awarded to the lowest bidder and then supplementary claims start to build and build. The national children’s hospital is the most obvious example of that. Not only does this represent a waste of public money, but the drip-feeding of delays and additional costs undermines the public’s faith in the State’s ability to get anything right. There can be serious consequences too in terms of the human cost, such as those we saw with the CervicalCheck scandal. This Bill is trying to move towards a price-quality ratio model. It is essentially about ensuring that we are getting the best bang for our buck, which is exactly what the Minister of State is looking for. It should not always be about finding the cheapest way to get things done when it comes to public works. Scrimping on important infrastructure means further costs down the line. When we are talking about public funds, we should always strive to achieve quality, be it in service delivery or infrastructure. We must be mindful that public money is just that - it belongs to the public and we have to respect that. Showing respect for taxpayers does not always mean choosing the cheapest option. It means delivering value. If continually having to go with the cheapest tender means finding faults down the line, spending additional time and money on follow-ups, inspections and so on, we are not delivering value but, rather, wasting public funds. This is a timely Bill given that we now have a national development plan worth €275 billion before us, not to mention the Government’s accelerating infrastructure action plan. We know there are huge infrastructure deficits in the country, be it in public transport, education, housing, water or the energy grid, etc. We have a lot of things we need to spend money on and it is so important that we get these infrastructure projects right because we failed to do so too often in the past. Often, it seems to come down to the fact that we have been penny-pinching at important points. It is important that it is recognised within public bodies that there is a need for stronger criteria that would place greater emphasis on quality in awarding public contracts. We need a greater focus on who can provide the best outcomes rather than a race to the bottom on who can provide the lowest cost. The Minister spoke about value for money. Quality is value for money. Many Members referred to the Netherlands example today. While 3% was added to the overall additional cost of procurement, additional benefits of 240% were achieved in the outcomes of using these methods. There is no issue with looking for the best deal but it has to be weighed against the quality that will be delivered. This Bill brings us in that direction. I also hope that the move towards a more quality-focused approach with this Bill will lead to greater consideration of environmental and sustainability issues in our procurement processes. Something that I have raised before on the matter of public procurement is the need to prioritise contractors who engage in collective bargaining, recognise trade unions, respect workers’ rights and agree to engage with the Workplace Relations Commission and our dispute resolution bodies when required. A price-only approach to tenders only penalises the good companies that already invest in the environment, employment law, workers’ rights and human rights standards. The Construction Industry Federation and the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland support this, as do all the unions. The Labour Party is proud to support this Bill today. I commend it to the House.

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.

I thank Deputies Ahearn, Boyd Barrett and O'Reilly for their contributions. This whole experience of bringing forward the Bill, talking to countless colleagues across the Government and Opposition benches over recent weeks and then coming to the House to receive the news that the Government is not going to support it makes me, as a new TD, so sad. I hear every day from the leaders of the Minister of State's party and its coalition partner that we do not offer solutions and that the Government engages constructively. This Bill is the result of eight years of constructive engagement, inside this House and outside. It was brought to the Government as a solution and its answer is, "No, thanks." I am genuinely sad that I am faced with that. I am a legislator. I was elected to be a legislator. This is legislation that addresses a very real problem that we all acknowledge and the Government is saying, "No, thanks". I am going to go through some of the details. Some of details of the Minister of State's response are problematic and completely ill-informed. I will start with the children's hospital. It seems to me that the Minister of State is saying that the Government is happy for the model to continue that allowed the decision for the children's hospital project to go the way it did because the cost was considered at 75% within the procurement matrix. This Bill would bring quality to 50%. Is the Minister of State okay with that? Two days ago, the Minister of State's colleague the Minister for Health engaged with my colleague Deputy Rice. When asked if the contract was fundamentally flawed, the Minister said that we would not take that step again. She said that the contractual structure is not one we would approach or adopt again. This Bill does exactly what she is asking. Two days after she spoke, the Bill is available to the Government on the Dáil of the floor. The Government says we do not offer solutions and do not want to work collaboratively. That is what I am doing today and this is the response I get. It takes the wind out of my sails, as a new TD, to get this kind of response. It is depressing. I will go through some of the misinformation that I have identified within the Minister of State's contribution. The Dutch figure has been misconstrued. The increase of 3% is in the procurement process, not in the projects. The figure of €10 billion is just wrong. The actual increase, which was shown in other research from Utrecht, which is perhaps where the Minister of State is getting this from, was 1%. As other colleagues have pointed out, that 1% increase in cost must be compared with the trade-off involved in losing quality and life-cycle costs. The actual value for money overall is bolstered by bringing in quality. It is not diminished, which is what the Minister of State's whole contribution seemed to say. The Government says it wants value for money. This Bill would bring value for money. It is achievable within the framework of the most economically advantageous tender. We chose, as a member state, to interpret it in a completely restrictive manner. All this Bill would do is address that. To say it is premature when it is in response to a 2014 directive, which was 12 years ago, is insane. It has taken us this long to get the legislation to the floor of the Dáil. It took work to get it through the Seanad, where colleagues of the Minister of State who will vote against it next Wednesday spoke in favour of it. Deputy Malcolm Byrne, who was then a Senator, spoke in favour of it. I have the quote here. He will shortly to vote against it. What changed between 2022 and 2025? He spoke in favour of it. The Government spoke in favour of it. I ask the Minister of State to tell me why we should now decide that this is not the way to go. I want to pick up on another factual piece. The Minister of State talked about the ministerial oversight that is sought when cost-only is required. That is an out-of-date response. It was in one of the earlier drafts of the legislation. That is exactly what I was talking about. Senator Higgins addressed that in this newer 2022 draft. The updated Bill stated a requirement for a senior figure in the organisation, which means it will not have to go to ministerial level. That is another point I wanted to address. The Minister of State referenced the progress that has been made in this space. I fully acknowledge that progress has been made. Circulars have been issued. It is referenced in the national strategy for collective bargaining as a pilot. All of that is the result of the work of Senator Higgins. It is because she has been engaging with the OGP and officials in the Minister of State's Department. That is why this is happening. This legislation would put it on a statutory footing and give clarity to everyone. That would allow us, as a member state, to say that we are progressive in our procurement and that we are recognising the social and ethical considerations that should be a part of the procurement process. Going back to the point about value for money, this Bill would allow for better decision-making that embraces value for money. The Minister of State said that it contradicts the Government's aim of supporting local and indigenous businesses, but he is wrong. That is exactly what it will do. As I said earlier, I have done this. I have designed and overseen procurement processes as part of the development and running of a State agency. I can say that because the culture is lowest cost only, the hands of the people in the procurement process are tied. They come to the decision-making process and see someone coming in who they know is problematic but they have to give them the contract because they have low-balled. That is what happens. The Minister of State talks about freedom. The freedom in the existing process is a fallacy. This Bill would empower people to introduce social and ethical considerations. That is a side aspect. The main thing it allows is the rewarding of good behaviour. It would reward good performers who will provide quality contracts to the State. That is what the Bill would allow for. It would not tie people's hands. It would untie them. I also want to reference the example of CervicalCheck, which was touched on a couple of times. I do not think it has been shared that the Scally report, which was an independent review of the CervicalCheck scandal and the screening programme, identified an overemphasis on obtaining the lowest cost from suppliers without equivalent emphasis on other quality and service-level measures as a key concern. That is a human cost of a poor procurement process. The independent expert is telling us that it is because we could not consider quality in the process. We have the big-money scandal of the children's hospital. We have the tragic human scandal of CervicalCheck. Numerous examples have been outlined today, and yet this Government continues to oppose the legislation. I think I know where the heart of the Government's objection lies. At the beginning of his speech the Minister of State referenced there being an increase in the level of bureaucracy and competition. He also said it seemed the entire Bill was premature. What is actually going on is the Minister of State and the Government are buying in to the current European vision for simplification and harmonisation. They are the two words I hear again and again. I am hearing them in relation to AI and the digital omnibus package travelling through the EU at the moment. We hear it about the occupied territories Bill. We hear about simplification and harmonisation all the time. One of the Minister of State's colleagues mentioned relieving the regulatory burden to me last week, though I cannot remember what it was in relation to. This is a better way to do procurement but, according to the simplification agenda, the Minister of State suggests it is about increasing regulation. That is my issue. I suspect what the Government wants is deregulation. It wants to embrace this drive to the bottom and this abandonment of the European Union standards we all hold dear and cherish as citizens of the Union. That is the agenda that is being promoted and which this Government is buying into hook, line and sinker. It does not make me anti-European to say that. We are one of 27 member states. I had a brief exchange on this with the Minister for public expenditure and reform last night and he told me this is not in line. The Minister of State has said the same and that, basically, these discussions are happening. I do not buy that for a second anyway because those discussions and negotiations will take years, meaning the Government could implement this legislation and then deal with anything else further down the line. As such, I do not buy it time-wise. When it comes to ethos and principles, however, if the Government knows simplification is coming and that it will ultimately drop the standards and quality of the procurement process in this State, it should not be rushing to conform to it. The Government, on behalf of the Irish people, should be pushing against it with all its might. That is what this Bill does. The Government should go back to the table and say Ireland has introduced quality into the process and it has been beneficial to the State, rather than waiting for the EU to tell it to drop it altogether. That is the saddest part of all this. In his response the Minister of State tried to pick things out and used examples that are ill-informed, poorly packaged and show me he does not understand what this Bill attempts to do. Underlying this is that the Government is hell-bent on the agenda of simplification, which in other words is deregulation. This Bill does not sit with that and that is why the Government is going to resist it. That is what has changed between 2022 and 2025. Like Deputy O'Reilly, I urge the Minister of State to bring this back to the Minister, Deputy Chambers. I will continue to talk to the Minister of State's colleagues. I have talked to so many of them over the last two weeks who looked at the Bill and said it was a great idea and asked why we are not doing this already. I will continue to do that until the vote next Wednesday and I am going to look all of them in the eye when they vote against it.

The division is postponed until the weekly division time next week.