Alice-Mary Higgins
National University of Ireland · Independent · Ireland
“We are signing up to be customers of liquefied natural gas - potentially fracked gas, potentially coming from a country that is busily fighting against climate action and trying to fast-track our route to destruction. We will be doing that every year in the budget and every day in the terminal.”
“We are not getting solid measures on those safeguards. The other safeguards we have, which are our planning laws and climate laws, are being either fast-tracked or suspended. We are suspending the existing safeguards and are not putting hard safeguards into this Bill, and we are being asked to go on faith.”
“Nonetheless, I have some practical questions. We need a little more on what the emergency is because it is not sufficient to say we will deal with it then. The emergency is the ground on which the Minister of State is asking for the normal planning process and the climate Act to be suspended. We need to know what the emergency is.”
“It should happen only after all relevant market-based measures have been implemented. Those market measures should include the demand-reduction strategies that are eligible under N-1, including demand reduction by large energy users, and should have been implemented, exhausted and proven insufficient.”
“Sure there is detail in it but the key issue is that what he is asking of the Oireachtas, which is to agree to it being built, is on the argument of there being an emergency. It should be very clear what the emergency is. I mentioned previously that the committee said our N-1 obligations could be met through demand management.”
“It comes from real places with real communities that are immediately and terribly impacted by fracking, as well as having an impact on the atmosphere that surrounds our beautiful planet, which we are destroying. As the Minister of State said, it impacts not just on business but on the liveability of large portions of this planet.”
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“I would like to ask explicitly if there will be a focus on international law under the values theme as part of the Presidency.”
“In the case of Ireland, that means passing the occupied territories Bill. We are crystal clear about the obligation on all states to prevent trade or investment relations that contribute to the maintenance of the illegal situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. That is what the International Court of Justice has told us. Will what is needed in this regard include the blocking mechanism that Spain has called for to protect the justices of the International Criminal Court who have been targeted by the US and cut off by Microsoft? Will Ireland take leadership in relation to international law as opposed to paying lip service to it? Will we be challenging countries, including large partners such as Germany, that are standing in the way of international law at this time?”
“If values are going to be a theme, international law needs to be included. We hear the phrase "values and interests". I feel like I am hearing it more often. It almost suggests we will talk about values and then have a chat about interests. I emphasise that while interests are important, they need to sit within values. If we are serious about values, then they should obtain and we should pursue our interests within the frame of those values. We cannot balance one off against the other. Our colleagues in Europe need to engage in a very difficult, serious and challenging discussion on international law. I would like to hear some comment on that matter. Ireland should consider international law, Europe's role in that regard and the need for seriousness in respect of it.”
“Will we actually be standing up for greater protections or will we be contributing to the dilution? Questions on workers' rights are going to be considered during the period of the Presidency, including in respect of the pay transparency directive, which Ireland has one month to transpose and that still has not really been properly transposed, as far as I can see. The EU scrutiny committee, which was mentioned by the Cathaoirleach, will have a role. That is a committee that the Seanad has formed with a view to giving a sense of accountability in relation to EU legislation that is coming through. We do not want it to be a kind of accountability wash. Talking about that committee's work needs to be matched by genuine engagement by Departments and genuine, timely engagement on the statutory instruments. Values have been mentioned as key.”
“We are at a moment where we are at risk not just of travelling in the wrong direction but also of digging up the road that got Europe to the point it is at now. I have very specific questions. Time and again, specific questions will arise. During its Presidency, Ireland will have the chance to do some very meaningful things such as, for example, standing up for the LIFE programme, which relates to the climate and biodiversity. This is the programme that supports farmers right across the country, who are trying to do the right thing on climate change. The aim is to have the funding ring-fenced rather than absorbed into a competitiveness fund where it is competing against drones and everything else. There is going to be debate on the digital omnibus.”
“There are nine omnibus Bills, each one of which removes an entire set of protections and standards that have been hard won. On the due diligence directive, I went back and forth for years with the current Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Calleary, developing the idea that supply chains of the very largest companies would have basic accountability and would not involve the likes of child labour and slavery. The corporate sustainability reporting directive was about the very largest companies acting on climate change. These measures got gutted in a three-month process through an omnibus Bill. Now we have the digital omnibus, which will dilute our GDPR protections. There are seven or eight more omnibus Bills, targeting every area from the environment to, potentially, workers' rights.”
“Eight hundred citizens from right across Europe, including Ireland, came together for many months and, in outlining what they valued about Europe, made it clear time and again that they valued exactly what Senators across this House have spoken about, namely, gender equality, workers' rights, environmental standards and health and safety protections. These are the facets that made them proud to be European. Citizens from across Europe were willing to give up time and travel to Strasbourg on multiple occasions to talk about the future of Europe because they were proud of what Europe had done regarding rights and standards. Right now, we have a European Commission that is not only making very poor choices for the future but also effectively is setting fire to the past.”
“It was stepping back from public engagement and public investment that created the gap. The actual comparative advantage is that the EU, with its very large market, creates standards that companies in it are meeting and can meet. Right now, Europe has the comparative advantage of having policies, regulations and standards that reflect the reality of the existence of climate change and of living in a diverse world. We are looking to others who are, frankly, setting fire to their scientific and economic progress because they are trying to harken back to a fantasy version of the 1950s. They are literally trying to remove some of the advantages rather than lean into these areas. These are our strengths on a practical level. I was one of four parliamentarians from Ireland in the Future of Europe process.”
“We had a decade of austerity and many of its major architects have admitted it was wrong. Individual members of the troika have come out and said there were mistakes made. We came almost as close as you could get to mea culpas . When we hear about competitiveness, the framing is important. Europe has not been losing its comparative advantage because of its regulations. It has been losing out because the ten-year vision we had for smart, sustainable, inclusive growth was put aside in favour of short-term quarterly fiscal targets. We lost a decade of public investment in the green transformation, digital progress and our own digital technologies. The rest of the world, which responded to the recession by increasing investment, got a head start at that point. Regulation was not the problem.”
“In this regard, the citizens of Ireland who are supportive of the EU are sending a really clear signal that needs to be listened to, namely, that they are very worried about the direction of travel and the question of core values being upheld. On the circumstances of Ireland going into this Presidency, it is not like in other countries, where they have to communicate why they should be part of the EU. There is no public communications issue here; rather, there is a genuine message that needs to be brought back into the European institutions and leadership by Ireland needs to be provided to help Europe to correct its direction and rediscover and reassert its core values. I was very proud to have been part of the Future of Europe process. That process was almost a moment when we felt we had had a curve of learning.”
“In a way, the previous speaker has said everything and covered the matter in great detail. I hope that, with Ireland's Presidency this year, we will have real, detailed discussions that go past the simplified frames we sometimes hear about, such as the one about us all being proud Europeans. We are all proud Europeans and Ireland is proudly European, as citizen polls show. What needs to be considered, however, is that a majority of those citizens who support Europe and want to be part of it believe it is moving in the wrong direction and a third believe it is not upholding its core values. Some of the hardest information you get comes from those who really care about you, including your friends.”
“In regard to the things the public wants them to do in the future, Senators' hands will be tied by a completely unnecessary and entirely ridiculous decision to create hostages to fortune. Why are we doing this? I honestly think a nice photograph is not worth it if that is the goal, and if the Government wants its hands to be tied so it can respond more directly to corporate pressure, that is an even bigger problem.”
“It would not even work in relation to that, and we think of Ireland and our diplomatic assets we are so proud of right across the world. Fundamentally, this is reckless. It is recklessness with the future. It is not balancing human rights against money; it is reckless financially. Senators feel they got a lot of emails about this issue. There is no monopoly on caring about issues, as every party and public representative cares about them. However, when they get emails in the future about any issue, what Senators do not want is to go back to those people who care about public health and who are writing to them about their concerns on public health, housing, the environment and any other issue and say, "Unfortunately, we have legal concerns that make it hard for us to do the right thing the public wants us to do".”
“You would actually need the CETA treaty to state it recognises that sometimes Ireland will not implement the rulings. Otherwise, it is a pretend. Not only that but even if Ireland did not enforce the arbitration rulings, there are multiple other countries that can. Again, it is very clear in the language that the ruling can be taken under the rules of whichever country it is filed in. For example, Spain decided not to pay in certain instances. They took a case against them in the UK and the UK said it was okay to seize Spanish assets in the UK. There are multiple examples where arbitration companies choose to file that the money they are owed by a state can be seized in another jurisdiction where that state has assets.”
“The legislation from the Minister does not say this is only going to be for the investor court systems; it could be for any dispute mechanisms that might be attached. That is what is there in subsection (5). We are wide open here to something that will massively compromise our ability to properly respond, and I should just say there is a dishonesty in the implication of, "Do not worry, we will not enforce it because of what the Constitution says". The point is, the Constitution says we have to abide by European law. By the way, arbitration bodies have been clear. They do not regard themselves as bound by European or international law. Mr. Justice Charleton was very clear that really, the Arbitration Act is a contradiction of CETA, so you would need a special protocol to the treaty.”
“I wonder would he have brought the smoking ban in if big tobacco had been able to sue, as it has sued countries right across the world and fought tooth and nail against even the inclusion of warnings on cigarette packets under investor-state dispute settlement, ISDS. I have some facts as well. This is not simply about the new investor court system which, by the way, is essentially the same. It is not a secret, although either party can ask that the reasons for judgment might not be revealed. It has the same operating mechanisms and, of course, companies do not have to go with the investor court system, ICS. They can choose to go under the old investment rules, or the ISDS rules.”
“These are areas where in many cases, the Government is failing people now and it wants to tie the hands of future Governments to say that they will not be able to respond and deliver for the public and the next generation if they wish to in these areas because when they do so, it will come with a huge threat. Yes, of course there is a right to regulate but what if that right to regulate comes with a massive compensation claim attached to it? Again, I quote Deputy Micheál Martin: "The smoking ban would never have been introduced had we been afraid of the threat of big tobacco coming after us legally." That was him giving out about the smoky coal ban where again, Varadkar was stalling, because of the Energy Charter Treaty, with regard to enacting it. The fact is, we would not have been exposed to big tobacco at that time.”
“I refer to us bringing in a rule where such a company gets to say we asked it to invest and again, the beyond barriers report is explicitly clear that what Canadian companies like is getting encouraged to invest. I have a list from a response to a parliamentary question of about 30 Canadian companies that have been encouraged to invest. The simple fact of that would give them a standing - which no Irish company would have, by the way - to say they want compensation on a rule. What are the areas that are affected? The litany of cases we have seen in the past are in the environmental and public health areas and there is huge vulnerability in other unregulated and under-regulated areas, like home care and housing.”
“It is the same language that is in those investor dispute mechanisms that has led to the list of egregious rulings, with hundreds of millions and billions being made against states when corporations looked for compensation. In regard to unfair and unequal treatment, it sounds like we would not do that. Let us be clear by the kinds of things that are covered by that. They are covered by the provision "When applying the ... fair and equitable treatment obligation" - this is from the text of CETA - "the Tribunal may take into account whether a Party made a specific representation to an investor to induce a covered investment, that created a legitimate expectation". It is not simply a matter of bringing in a rule that will apply to everybody and that we will be fine.”
“What those courts do is balance a whole set of rights. They look at the claim an investor is making and they balance it against environmental, human rights and case law and against the wider picture. They come up with a ruling that is balanced by all those aspects of the law. What arbitration courts do is solely consider whether a corporation can be afforded compensation, which includes future unearned profits that it might have made if it feels it has been unfairly treated in relation to a policy or if a policy unfairly impacts on it. The implications of that have been seen globally, right across, with investor-state dispute mechanisms. Those same grounds are there, namely, fair and equitable.”
“Not only that, but when we look to the Government's own document on the future opportunities for trade with Canada, Beyond Barriers: Deepening Canada–Ireland Trade and Investment, we hear those are in areas where trade is already allowed and happening. There is no constraint in relation to any of those ambitions for increased trade, be with Canada, Chile or anywhere else but the investor court component is separate and is deeply consequential. We need to be clear. The line was said in regard to protections. There is already protection. The Ministers and the Canadian ambassador have said it before: there is no example of Canadian companies failing to get proper justice in our Irish courts system. Are we saying that we do not trust Canadian courts after all the wonderful things we hear about? These are established.”
“The European Commission has been mandated by the different countries to negotiate and lead on it. That is why it can be very frustrating moving in these areas sometimes but the point is that is what we have agreed, and they move forward. The trade component can move forward but the investor court element, which is an issue that directly affects national sovereignty, has national implications and subsidiary implications that go beyond anything collectively for the European Union, must be decided and determined at national level. It is not simply that we did A and do not want to do B; it is that A and B are different. With A being trade, trade is already happening. It is already under way.”
“I first brought discussion on CETA and investor courts to the Seanad exactly a decade ago. It was my very first Private Member's business as a new Senator. A majority of Senators at that time had the courage to support me and the motion was successful. The concern we were raising in that motion was the fact that the trade component and these investor courts were separate and should not be considered together. We noted that a European Court of Justice ruling on the Singapore deal was pending and that Ireland should not be rushing ahead before it. That Singapore ruling did happen and we were correct because that ruling decided and said - and this is why it is really important, we are not just saying we are getting away with the trade - the trade and investor court components are separate. Trade is an EU competency.”
“In many cases, they are being identified as a risk in different European countries and situations. Is Ireland going to be key in our role as a data regulator? That is where we can be on tech regulation. That is what need, not an end to our neutrality and not the removal of our triple lock, especially in a climate where we are seeing direct bullying of countries to participate in illegal wars of interests. That is not the time for Ireland to remove our safeguard in terms of the triple lock. It is time for Ireland to double down on international law and to step up to the plate in the things that we can and should do.”
“We are very proud of our role in the global ban on cluster munitions. Yet, the Government seems unwilling to criticise our fellow European countries, which are now leaving the cluster munition and landmine conventions, and the European Commission, which is directing money towards the purchase and development of cluster bombs. If we are serious about Ireland's role as a champion in the place where we have credibility, let us stand up for the treaties we negotiated and let us give leadership on things like autonomous weapons, which need a new treaty to ban them. We hear about cybersecurity. Let us be very real and frank that it is not simply Russian actors and stealth actors. Some of the very large tech corporations and their leadership have been very open about their international political agendas. They have campaigned very openly on it.”
“They have delivered an arms embargo where Ireland - a neutral country - has not delivered an arms embargo. Others are acting. We cannot hide behind it. We need to face up to the real concrete actions we can take. Again, what will we do about the fact of dual use goods - the technologies of war? Ireland has had an almost six-fold increase in our exports of dual use technologies to Israel during the period of the war. These are "concrete actions". That is the phrase from the Minister of State's own speech. What concrete actions will Ireland be taking in relation to showing our seriousness about international law and leading on it? On the area of disarmament, we are very proud of our role in nuclear disarmament, which is something that is maybe worth remembering in the current moment, and in leading the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.”
“Europe has a blocking mechanism that it has not used to protect that key instrument of international law in the ICC. Will we be taking a stand? Sadly, not to point to the Minister of State, one of the Government parties, Fine Gael, as a member of the European People's Party, EPP, blocked a debate on the new death penalty law that says you can be killed if you are from a particular ethnicity but not from another. The debate on it that was meant to happen in the European Parliament was blocked. It was blocked by a vote of the EPP. These are real questions. We talk about wanting to encourage others in Europe, but the fact is we did encourage others in Europe to act and they did. Spain and Slovenia acted. They passed their versions of the occupied territories Bill.”
“Factually, we have not enacted the occupied territories Bill, despite that we heard about international law being so important and despite the direct obligation placed on us and reminded of us in that International Court of Justice ruling. It is in the preamble of the Government's own Bill which it has not progressed. We have been asked by everybody about when it is progressing. I would like an answer to that. I would like an answer to whether Ireland is going to attend a major event. There is a new International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC, initiative on humanitarian law which Ireland is a signatory to. Will the Government be attending the event in December to gather on that? Will Ireland be pressing for actual action in relation to the International Criminal Court?”
“We hear about values and that values must be central, but I also hear the phrase "values and interests" as if we are going to trade them against each other, thinking about our interests now and then talking a little about values. Of course, countries have interests, but if values are values they have to be the outside frame. We need to be serving these. Of course, we can pursue Ireland’s interests, but we need to pursue them within a frame of values. When there are interests that work against the kinds of values we espouse, not just for ourselves but also for humanity as a whole, we need to be willing to challenge and rethink them. We have not found that.”
“In the Minister of State’s speech, he called for clarity on international law and said we should press Europe for concrete actions, but in that same speech there was almost a contribution to the sanewashing we are seeing. I refer to the line about the repression, which all of us have condemned. Some of us, for months and months, have been calling out the repression of Iran’s citizens. The Minister of State’s next remark was that this repression was immediately followed by the action of the US, as if there were some connection between the two. Then a reference was made to strikes by Iran and Israel. These are illegal strikes. There is an unwillingness to name illegality when it comes from a country where we have interests at play.”
“We are part of that, and Ireland has been an above-the-line, incredibly strong voice in this regard. We heard in the Minister of State’s speech that Ireland remains committed to upholding the UN Charter and the rules and principles, working together with like-minded partners. We actually need to work together with everybody, as required by our being part of the UN, and not just work with a few select countries that we may also happen to have business interests with, or our European partners. We must work with everybody, and that is what being part of the UN means. Reference is made to upholding and defending the system and to international law, which we say should be paramount, but what are we doing? We are not doing what we are calling for.”
“All of these treaties, all of these promises we made to each other as humanity, came in the period between 1945 and 1951. They set a frame on the idea that we should proceed together as humanity, approach things differently and use a different set of tools, learning not just from the Second World War but also from millennia of might-is-right thinking, colonialism and empire-building. Seán Lemass spoke about how important it was for Ireland, not just from a moral point of view but also in terms of its interests as a small nation, to support the strength of the UN. Despite this, I hear it casually thrown around that the UN is failing, and this is said by people who are failing to uphold the UN principles. They say it is regrettable when in fact the UN is us.”
“I want to begin by quoting from an interview given by the director general of the International Red Cross, Mr. Pierre Krähenbühl, who was visiting Ireland this week. He stated: When we see the atrocities committed in Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Israel and Gaza, it’s understandable that public trust in the effectiveness of humanitarian law is shaken. It’s often breached, but when it’s respected, it saves lives ... That may seem insufficient – but it’s vital. Humanitarian law exists to remind us that we don’t need a catastrophe on the scale of the Second World War to come to our senses. That war led to a wave of treaties: the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the genocide convention, the Geneva Conventions, and the refugee convention...”
“We want to move to a situation whereby they build in properly designated isolation areas. We need something that gives these centres a shot at getting this funding and multi-annual security, which is where we have to move to. Perhaps that could be looked at. Anything that moves us away from a situation where the generosity of individuals is, in many cases, all that is supporting hedgehogs, cetaceans or the many other examples that we could give of extraordinary projects throughout the country. This route towards recognition and resources is very welcome. I am happy to support the motion.”
“I like that the picture that is painted of what we should be having in terms of a properly resourced wildlife rescue network of centres and spaces throughout the country where people can provide the care in a way that is ideal. That is wonderful. I hope the Minister of State will say this is something we are going to make happen, and this fund is going to happen and here is how we are going to report on it. I have a small suggestion. Because this area has been so under-resourced for so long, some of the projects that exist will struggle to reach the high standard that is set out. A one-off grant may be needed to allow wildlife rehabilitation centres to reach the proper standards and provide the separation between domestic animals and wildlife that is so important.”
“Incredible care and work are done. As Senators said, it is done on a 24-hour basis. We often cannot bring these animals to us. We have to be with them. It requires an extraordinarily generous form of love and care. It is so often on the fringes. We hear a lot about farmers being the stewards of nature. That is very valid, but what we are talking about here is people who are literally the stewards of nature, who are purely devoting themselves to nature, not as a side point of what they are doing but as a core, who are dedicating their time to our fellow species and to life. They should be rewarded. It should be something that people can plan and build. I see that career development and professional development is built into it.”
“Vital funding for nature and biodiversity could get absorbed into a competitive fund, where it is competing against drones, military funding and all the rest. One of the challenges during our EU Presidency will be to make sure that LIFE funding is maintained as a separate strand of funding. That is one issue, but then there is this issue of wildlife rescue. The other part of the bigger picture is habitat work. I urge the Minister of State to ensure we move to designate more spaces. We talked about releases and where they would happen. We must have more special areas of conservation and back up the nature restoration plans we will have with real resources. We must look to continuously expand our national parks, as I know the Minister of State will. Wicklow was in the news recently for potential there, as were other places.”
“We are talking about an extraordinary loss of the many threads that make up the amazing web of biodiversity on our planet. Here in Ireland we have such beautiful biodiversity. We see the reports from birdwatchers who go out to listen to birds and there are fewer of them. The same birds are not there. The many sightings have become the very occasional sighting in terms of wildlife. There are success stories of species that have come back from the brink, like the corncrake and others. I want to credit a separate strand of funding which has been really important in that regard, namely, European LIFE funding, for some of the species that are in critical decline. We know that LIFE funding is itself under threat at the moment.”
“I am very glad to support the motion. There are a few different words in Irish for the environment but one of the nicest is comhshaol, the idea of coexistence and living together. We share this space. Wildlife in its essence is the idea of life that is not utilitarian. It is not a product. It is not farming. It exists simply as a fellow traveller on our planet and in our country. At the same time, its magic is in its existence that is separate from us. It is also part of healthy biodiversity, which is crucial to all our survival in the big picture. The climate crisis gets a central focus but the biodiversity crisis we are facing is as acute, if not more acute. We are in one of the great eras of extinction with 15,000 species on red lists.”
“Is he going to bring in a measure to make that happen, or is he just going to hope it happens? I would also like explicit answers with regard to the security risks and exposure that has been flagged as a concern by many equivalent democracies across Europe.”
“These are significant issues. These are massive public procurement issues and major contract issues. Yes, there are massive human rights and equality issues, but there are also crucial security issues. I would like the Minister of State to address that specific and large area of public procurement in the context of public security and how it is being addressed. I would like the Minister of State to answer those questions. I would like answers on his position going into these negotiations and explicitly on quality and on environmental factors. I would like to know where public duty, human rights and equality are going to be addressed in public procurement. I would like to know what he is going to do the next time there is a scandal. What is he going to do about weighting for major projects? Will it be 50% weighting?”
“How is he planning to monitor how the public duty in equality and human rights is being implemented in procurement, for example in terms of the ethics issues we have heard about with regard to those who are committing human rights violations or in areas that overlap with questions of security? I will give an example. Across Europe, we are seeing a move away from procurement with regard to Microsoft. The Italian military has moved off it. There have also been moves in Denmark and France. A huge number of public service areas are moving away from a company that testified in the French Senate that it will share our data with America. Here in the Oireachtas and in many Departments, we have changed our entire telephone system to be subject to and part of a company that, as we heard in testimony in the AI committee, is vulnerable to hacking.”
“I would like to know what that position is. I come now to a few specific questions. There is discussion of more data. Will that include reporting in relation to the public duty on equality and human rights? This is a public duty that applies to all public bodies. They currently report in the context of the public duty in general, but it applies to procurement. It applies to what you spend the public’s money on. Right now, separate to reporting on the public duty, we do not have within procurement a reporting system that says how we delivered the public duty on equality and human rights when we did our procurement. That is even as we have heard that ethical considerations are immensely important to the public. I would like to know how the Minister of State plans for this to be reflected.”
“I wonder why we are not delivering on that. Another rationale that was given was that a new directive is coming. We did not take full advantage of the 2014 directive, but now we are told that a new directive is coming. It will be negotiated during the Minister of State's watch. I am a little worried, because I was told that was why we could not go ahead and put quality into public procurement. May I ask what position Ireland will be taking in those negotiations on quality in public procurement? Is the Minister of State anticipating, expecting or hoping for a simplification that lessens the weighting and the focus on quality in public procurement? That is not what is in the narrative of his speech, but it is what is suggested by the unwillingness to commit to quality in advance of the new directive being negotiated.”
“He made the choice to stick with the model that can allow major projects in the fives, tens, 15s and 20s of millions to be given on a majority price-only basis rather than on a quality basis. The other rationale that was given was a misquoting about increased costs of 3%. That was the cost of the tender process. That is the cost of advertising and of reading it. The actual figures from the Netherlands showed that while there was an increase of less than 1% in certain costs with regard to contracts, there was a massive increase in benefits to the public - I think it was 7.5 or 17.5; I will look into the figures - when you put quality in it. That is because the Netherlands has been making quality the default. That is what my legislation was based on. I know officials from the Minister of State’s Department travelled there.”
“When you have underbidding, you get subsequent claims, you get bad practices and you do not reward the companies that come in with realistic pricing, with quality they can deliver and with proper, decent treatment for their staff. They get penalised because of the advantage given to those who are willing to underbid, and who then deal with it in subsequent claims that drive up the cost indefinitely, as we have seen. When we look at the children's hospital, we see not just the costs but the errors that need to be corrected. We are now hearing about further corrective measures that need to be done in the children's hospital. Frankly, that is the approach the Minister of State has stuck with.”
“The current approach is entirely discretionary, and it would remain discretionary, but there is not an explanation mechanism. I will give examples of what it means when we are going with lowest price only. The cervical check contract was on price only and that had very real consequences for women in the State. On the children's hospital, price was given a 75% weighting and quality was given only a 25% weighting. Even though the Minister of State has said that now about 80% of projects are going on quality criteria, what is the weighting? If it is less than 50%, price will automatically trump it based on whoever puts in the lowest number. We know the problems. That is why the Construction Industry Federation, the architects and all of these other groups backed the proposals in this Bill.”
“He issued circulars specifically asking for the approach specified in my Bill and asking that price-quality would be the preferred model. I am very aware that there was an improvement in practice. That was an improvement that I saw taking place in my regular meetings with the OGP and the Minister of State at that time. However, the problem was with the culture shift that the Minister of State referenced in his speech. For that to really happen, we needed to have something which specified an explanation was needed when going with price only. It is not that the Minister needs to explain - that was another thing suggested in the Minister of State's reply to the Chamber which is not accurate - it is that a senior officer would give an explanation. We need to think about what these contracts mean.”
“It was a very common-sense proposal which was backed by the Construction Industry Federation, the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and pretty much everybody we spoke to in procurement over a long period of time. It was backed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael previously. However, it was voted down and then we had the rhetoric. I will go back to some of the reasons. When it was debated in the other House, having passed all Stages here in the Seanad and gone to the Dáil, the rationale we were given did not really add up. It was pointed out that we had moved only 12% to price only. That was a move from basically a quarter of all contracts going on price only that moved down during the period of time I engaged with the Minister of State's predecessor, Ossian Smyth.”
“The Minister of State supported my Bill in the Seanad along with his Government colleagues many of whom spoke in favour of it. Let us be crystal clear on what it did. The Bill provided that quality should be the default when thinking about both price and quality with procurement rather than going with price only. People can go with price but if they do so, they need to tell us why they have gone with price only. It required people to think about quality and give us an explanation on record as to why quality was not followed. The Bill also included the idea that very large, once-in-a-generation projects and major works worth over the EU threshold of fives and tens of millions would have a 50% quality threshold.”