Ged Nash
Louth · Labour Party · Ireland
“However, it is a rich country that has a problem understanding that it is now sustainably rich. Those of us in opposition will, of course, say that this country needs to do better, and it can.”
“On the one hand, it is legitimate for an Opposition party to critique the economic model day in, day out. I do it myself all of the time, and we all know that Ireland can do better. However, at the same time, is that kind of critique helping to persuade those whom we need to persuade into a new Ireland? I am not so sure that it is.”
“There will be fiscal and financial implications for this State in that transition. There is an obligation on us, insofar as we can, to properly interrogate and consider those implications and to be upfront about them.”
“No, it did not, but let us not exaggerate its impact on the Irish economy. It is good and it had an impact, but was there a causal relationship? I am not so sure. The jury is out on that. However, is the Good Friday Agreement a good thing and good for our economy? Of course, it is. Did the guns fall silent in the North?”
“We are not good at describing what those accommodations will be or what that relationship with the UK will be, whether economically, socially, politically, culturally or otherwise. It is a relationship that will have to be maintained. It will look very different as we approach a new Ireland.”
“That was a very different prospect when the vast majority, if not all, of East German citizens wanted to become part of a united German polity. As we know, that is not the case on this island. We need to be careful about how we approach that.”
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“People I represent are handing back groceries at the till when they get there because they do not have the money to pay for them all. Where is the dignity in that? They are afraid to put on the radio in case they are told about another expected hike next month in their electricity or gas bills. It is frankly hard to accept the claim that the Government is all about targeting when the social protection package - the thing we use to target the most vulnerable - is so wide of the mark. Here are some of the one-hit wonders the Government recorded last year that got it safely over the line in November: not one but two double payments of child benefit; a €400 lump sum for carers; €200 on the living alone allowance; and so much cash to toss around that the Government even had a €280 grant to wet new babies' heads.”
“Nowhere will the Government's refusal to deliver a cost-of-living package hurt more than for those who depend on the State for their income. The pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis exposed real inadequacies and gaps in our social protection, work and care systems. The temporary payments just papered over the cracks; that is all. The tide has gone out, and it is those citizens who are most in need of help who are more vulnerable than ever. If a person is on a fixed income, how in God's name is an extra €10 a week going to help him or her make ends meet when the price of basics - the groceries and electricity bills - is getting out of hand?”
“This time last year, the Government chose to buy the general election, and with our own money. There was a wad of €2 billion in so-called "once-offs" - the most abused and misused term in Irish politics. Money was sprayed around and, by coincidence, was hitting bank accounts around polling day. Imagine that. It was all melting away like snow on a ditch almost as soon as the votes were counted and feet under the Cabinet table again soon after Christmas. Mission accomplished; job done. About €23 million per Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TD elected was the bill for the biggest and most brazen batch of bribes in Irish electoral history. The thing is we can support families through this difficult time and be responsible at the same time. The reality is, with some small exceptions announced today, the Government has chosen not to.”
“Of course, things were very different this time last year. First and foremost, there was an election to be won. The election is over, but the crisis in households most certainly is not. For the people I represent, there is too much month left after the end of the money. The struggles are real. The temporary respite of one-off measures is now history. Families with children who were over €2,000 better off thanks to 2025's budget will feel the difference come January. This will bite. This is on the Government. There are no energy supports this time out. There are limited, if any, improvements in terms of childcare. There is a €500 increase in college fees. What kind of Orwellian statement did the Minister make earlier on trying to claim that this was a cut to fees? It is not. We are nowhere close to free GP care for all kids. I could go on.”
“The Hamburglar from the 1980s McDonald's ad is back in town swiping hundreds of millions of euro in his swag bag from PAYE workers, who will see their wage increases next year swallowed up because bands and credits will not move to take account of their modest pay increases. This will come as a real surprise to those who have read the Fine Gael manifesto and would have expected an increase in the top band of €2,000 per year. That was the promise. This pledge is now in tatters. This will take some explaining, especially set against this budget's abject failure to support families through a cost-of-living crisis that for all too many has now become permanent. To be fair to the Government, it does not pretend that this year's offering is anything but modest. God knows, this Government has a lot to be modest about.”
“Our public services need investment. Labour has shown how we would pay for that extra investment by raising revenue from, for example, restoring the bank levy and setting out €500 million, not €200 million as the Government has announced today, and other measures targeting wealth and assets. Where we spend more, we will raise in taxes. We need some honesty in the debate over tax and how we develop our country and the services on which we all rely. That debate, honesty and courage are not to be found in this budget. This is a budget for burger barons and big builders. That is the long and the short of it. Budgets are about choices, and this Government has made its and we are going to have to live with it. It has chosen Ronald McDonald over Joe and Joan Murphy, and your man from Supermac's over the man who gets up early in the morning.”
“However, following all the extra Estimates to date, nearly €500 million of capital spending remains unallocated and unaccounted for in 2025. We will have to go through a detailed expenditure report to figure out where €500 million extra will be allocated, but this is an extraordinary way to plan for investment and indicates a lack of credibility and transparency from the Government. There are no detailed answers on demographics and existing levels of service - the details we need to keep the show on the road - and nothing much on carryover costs. We also have no clarity on how equity invested in EirGrid, ESB and Uisce Éireann will be accounted for under European rules. It is simply listed as €5.5 billion of strategic capital investment in the White Paper. In short, we have a Government with a credibility problem. This is a dangerous game.”
“The threadbare revised national development plan did not include capital Vote ceilings for 2025. A total of two Supplementary Estimates for housing have already added over €1.4 billion to the budget for social and affordable housing in 2025. It took analysis by the Labour Party of the gross capital allocation to uncover that over €500 million of capital spending still had not been allocated to spending Departments at this time of the year. This is not an insignificant matter and it is no way to do business. The national development plan and the summer economic statement were predicated on a capital investment spending increase of €2 billion next year from a base of €17.1 billion to €19.1 billion. The White Paper published on Friday miraculously included a capital spending figure of €17.05 billion this year.”
“A medium-term framework was published a month ago with no departmental spending ceilings, and what is more, it is all being paid for by dipping into the well of unreliable windfall corporation taxes from a handful of firms while the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Chambers, go about hollowing out and narrowing the tax base ever more. This never ends well. It is unprecedented that, as the Government presents next year's budget, we did not even know the composition of the capital budget for 2025. In no other country would a government get away with this. It is a direct undermining of the powers and responsibilities of Dáil Éireann under the Constitution. It is why Labour has proposed that the Dáil needs its own independent Estimates commissioners to keep the Government in check.”
“Public spending has gone up by over half since 2019, with Covid-19 revealing dangerous gaps in our health service and welfare and employment model. In recent years, we have had dishonest budgets that were works of pure fiction, with Ministers trotting in here year after year seeking Dáil approval for billions of euro more in spending after the event. There are dizzying spending overruns that are now routine with less, not more, transparency on how budgets are put together. There was a summer economic statement that could have been written by a transition year work experience student in the Department of public expenditure.”
“It is a Government that has wasted a boom and is happy to throw money at problems that instead require novel thinking, imagination, courage and real reform. There is a faint whiff of 2008 around the place. The Government can be fiscally responsible and investment focused, too, but Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil let their old ideology get in the way. Recent history shows us that the Government cannot keep cutting taxes and ramp up spending at the same time and expect a good outcome for our country. I am one of three survivors still in this House from the Government that marshalled Ireland back to economic growth. Another is the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and my colleague, Deputy Kelly. The Minister should know the risks. Nobody should want to be there again. We are duty bound to remind this Government. We have to ponder some facts.”
“Ireland in 2025 is a country of contradictions - rich and poor, all at the same time. We have: record corporation tax takes, but also record numbers of children without homes; record numbers of people in work, with one in five of us on low pay; budget surpluses that are the envy of Europe, with poor public services and infrastructure that belies our status as a rich country; growing wealth at the top alongside shameful levels of child poverty; high food prices that just keep climbing; the second highest energy costs in the European Union; a housing supply and affordability crisis; rising rents; and regulation that fails citizens. All of this has not happened by accident. It is the logical outcome of policies pursued by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil for a decade.”
“I will be sharing time with my colleague Deputy Sherlock. The story of Ireland over the past decade has been a story of missed opportunities. There was a catastrophic failure to build the homes we need when we could and should have done. The Government is so crippled by caution and conservatism that we are only now, a decade into a unprecedented spell of uninterrupted growth, facing up to the chronic infrastructure deficits in transport, health, education and energy that put our economic model and our society at risk. I have said it before and I will say again: Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael combined are the single biggest threat to Ireland's economy, not Donald Trump and his tariffs. Together, they have delivered a budget of broken promises for workers and dreams that have come true for developers.”
“The Government seems allergic to dusting down the Commission on Taxation and Welfare's report and identifying ways in which we can raise revenue in a sustainable way to support the childcare services we need, eradicate child poverty and build the homes we need in a sustainable fashion. In this budget, accepting that everybody in this House, regardless of their political persuasion, accepts that there is a need to increase public spending and target it properly, will the Minister accept that there is a need to broaden the tax base and that it is unwarranted and unjustifiable to hollow out the tax base by granting a VAT cut to the hospitality sector that is untargeted and that will disproportionately benefit those with very healthy bottom lines, such as McDonald's and other companies like it?”
“I thank the Minister for his response, which was interesting from a number of perspectives. The Labour Party always makes the case for additional public spending, whether that is to meet the needs of demographic changes or existing levels of service. We do that transparently, especially when we are looking at the new investments we need to make our economy work and our society fairer. We are always honest that we simply cannot pay for the new services we require without looking at where we can raise revenue to pay for those services. That is the problem this Government and that which preceded it have had.”
“What actual evidence does this Government have to support the case for a VAT cut for the hospitality sector? Will the Minister ensure that budget 2026 broadens the tax base rather than hollows it out?”
“The door is wide open for a massive VAT cut for hospitality but yesterday's National Competitiveness and Productivity Council report showed that there has been a net expansion in the number of firms in the sector, as well as in employment and earnings, in recent years. We have had no evidence from the Government on the need for a VAT cut. The case, in truth, is thin. There is little evidence supporting the case but instead of widening the tax base, this Government is proceeding to do the opposite: to hollow it out despite all of the warnings. Why is this year's budget process cloaked in secrecy? Why do we not have real budget transparency? Will the Minister publish the existing levels of service figures for 2026 and clarify what exactly is available for new current spending next year?”
“A Revised Estimate for the Department of Housing was tabled last night and included around €600 million in extra spending but we have absolutely no detail whatsoever on where that money is going. No updated departmental Vote group ceilings have been published and that is not good enough. This morning the ESRI warned about overheating. Corporation tax is this Government's new stamp duty and is being used to fund more spending, with no tax increases on wealth or assets to pay for it. These windfall taxes are to this Government what stamp duty was to Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen. Rather than broaden the tax base to make it ready for the future, it looks like the Government will keep hollowing it out.”
“We have budgets that are, quite frankly, works of fiction, as Ministers trot into the Dáil at the end of every year looking for billions more to account for overruns. What is more, the budget process this year is cloaked in secrecy. When we ask questions in the Dáil and, as we did last night, at the budgetary oversight committee, about it we get no substantive answers whatsoever on clear spending plans. It is, frankly, unprecedented. A very serious credibility gap has emerged. The summer economic statement is predicated on a €2 billion increase in capital spending next year, from €17.1 billion to €19.1 billion. As the Minister knows, the capital ceiling at present is about €15.8 billion, as per the August Exchequer returns. That leaves a further €1.3 billion in capital spending that must be spent before the end of the year.”
“In less than a fortnight the budget will be announced. There is growing concern among commentators and experts that we are in a situation where spending is out of control and frankly, they are right. There is a certain faint whiff of 2008 around the place. The budgetary oversight committee has heard warnings from the ESRI, IFAC, the Central Bank and me that we cannot keep spending and cutting taxes and expect good outcomes. We have a Government that has no net spending rule. We had a medium-term framework published two weeks ago that had no spending ceilings, a threadbare national development plan published in the summer, and an opaque summer economic statement. We have no transparent way of accounting for existing levels of service.”
“What is it going to do about reforming the way in which local government is funded and the overreliance on commercial rates? What is it going to do about training and professionalising the hospitality sector? It will do nothing because in the boom times, we simply take taxpayers' money and throw it at the people who shout the loudest without any justification whatsoever for doing so. The Minister said it is complex to introduce a second tier of child benefit, and it is. We moved heaven and earth in early 2020 to make sure, justifiably and correctly, that businesses were supported to remain open in the heat of a global pandemic. We moved heaven and earth to introduce a wage subsidy scheme, complex and all as it was. A second tier of child benefit is achievable and can be done.”
“The Government prefers to transfer taxpayers' money to certain economic sectors rather than focus on alleviating child property. They are the choices the Government will make. When it does that, workers will not benefit. History has shown that this particular battle has not been to the benefit of workers and their pay, terms and conditions and has not been to the benefit of consumers. When this happens, the Government will declare victory and say there is nothing more it can do for the hospitality sector. I am not callous enough to say that I am not concerned about businesses in the hospitality sector closing. Of course I am, but like child poverty running a business is complex and so are the demands and costs. What is the Government going to do about energy costs?”
“My colleague, Deputy Sherlock, spoke articulately and eloquently earlier about the Commission on Taxation and Welfare on which she sat more than ten years ago, which clearly identified the principal thing we could do to declare war on and eradicate child poverty and give every child every chance. That was to introduce a second and targeted tier of child benefit. We have had many years of boom times to introduce such a payment but have simply refused to do so. We are now told that it is complex, which we know and understand. There are complexities involved in introducing such a payment. We understand that. However, we have had ten years of Fine Gael, supported by Fianna Fáil in one fashion or another, and they have simply failed to do it because the political will is simply not there.”
“However, the Government has collectively stuck two fingers up to working people in this country. One fifth of all Irish workers are low paid. Coincidentally, the same proportion of children in this country are in consistent poverty. Workers are being denied a living wage and, because of the way in which this budget will be managed in two weeks' time, the Government will again refuse to introduce a second tier of child benefit to move poor Irish children out of poverty and give them the chance the Government says Irish children should have in this Republic. Frankly, the Government does not believe this. The information on how we do this has been available for years.”
“He has been urged to publish it by the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council. He has refused to publish the data that would provide any evidence for such a significant cash transfer and tax relief for one sector over another. He will not publish it because he knows the evidence is thin. All of this was because of a solemn promise made during the election campaign by the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, to mollify one economic sector and tell people that the Government would do something for them if they re-elected those who were then in government. He also made a solemn promise, as did Fianna Fáil, to introduce a living wage for workers in 2026 and to extend sick leave entitlements in order to bring us somewhere close to modern European norms.”
“There is a truism that abounds around this place at this time every year as we approach the budget. It goes something like "Show me your budget and I will show you my priorities". This is especially true of a budget that takes place at the start of a Government's term. We do not know a huge amount about the complexion of the budget that will be introduced on 7 October. However, we know from a very successful media campaign run by a sectoral interest and Fine Gael especially, which bent over backwards to accommodate it, that an enormous of money on an annual basis, totalling at least €630 million in one year, will be transferred from PAYE taxpayers to a small and narrow sectoral interest without justification. The Minister, Deputy Burke, who will be responsible for this, has refused to publish the data we know he possesses.”
“I appreciate this is a bit of an moveable feast but there are uncertainties. The G20 nations were the guardians of the OECD deal originally. The OECD adopted it and we adopted it. I welcomed at the time that we adopted the process ourselves. That was not without risks for Ireland. It was a welcome thing to do. Because the framework of this deal is subject to EU legislation, I assume EU legislation will require to be changed to accommodate this agreement if indeed there is an agreement. That will require unanimity. The likelihood is there will be unanimity because many of the G7 nations such as France, Germany and Italy and so on are part of the G7 group. What is the Minister’s view on that? Will it require legislation that will ultimately have to be adopted by this House if it is to come to pass?”
“I thank the Minister for his response. I note the publication of that statement and that he has placed on the record of the House that at this stage, this is an understanding. At the time, my recollection is that he welcomed the removal of section 899 retaliatory measures and that is very important for businesses. We have to remember that Ireland has significant foreign direct investment in the United States. This has been described as a form of opt-out for the US. Does the Minister believe this may have worrying implications for the remainder of the OECD deal? This may very well heap more uncertainty on the uncertainty we are already experiencing around the type of tariff regime the US Administration may like to see implemented.”
“The proposals in the Social Democrats' motion are modest. They are realistic, reasonable and pragmatic. I would not for a minute overstate what its provisions would achieve but it would bring greater transparency. It would help us to stand up for the customer once and for all and help make major businesses in this country more accountable. It baffles me why any Government is hostile to that.”
“This is the "Father Ted" approach to the cost-of-living crisis in Ireland. It is the equivalent of "Can anything be said for another mass? Let's do another report." It is a fool's errand. Without clear information and without compelling the supermarkets to publish their profits, we will have no reliable data. Because we do not know their margins, we will not know how they price products and hard-pressed punters will continue to be kept in the dark - just how the big chains want it and all sustained by a Government that will not rock the boat in a situation where there is also a real risk that the very limited competition in the supermarket sector in Ireland could lead to abuses of dominant positions with both the business environment and consumers ending up paying the price. The proposals I made in our Bill are modest.”
“I heard the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, on the "News at One" on RTÉ Radio last Friday. He said all the right things. He is well briefed. He also said that what we need now is the evidence to take the appropriate action and that process is under way. What process is under way? None, I would venture. Like Ministers, I like to make my decisions based on evidence. The Minister of State said that he would ask the CCPC to do a rerun of the analysis it did on grocery prices in mid-2023 - the one that managed to conclude somehow that there was no evidence of price gouging and excessive pricing in Ireland even though it could not possibly make a conclusive determination on that because it had no information of any quality on the very profits the companies it was supposed to be examining were making. Riddle me that.”
“The Bill was published in May 2023 and debated on Second Stage in late May of this year. Its core idea and some of the text are essentially referenced in this very welcome motion from the Social Democrats but the Government has delayed its advancement to Committee Stage by a year. The question is why the Government decided to do that when in May 2023, in response to Labour's campaigning on high grocery prices, the then Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Simon Coveney, said he would do just that. He is on record as saying that this is a good idea but the Government has done nothing since. He said that if price rises continued, he would haul the supermarkets in, bring them to heel and enact his own legislation to make them publish their profits in Ireland and give the CCPC more market surveillance and enforcement powers.”
“The early price rises of groceries on the shelves at the start of this cost-of-living crisis were quite easily explained by post-Covid demand followed by war in Europe. We all understood and continue to understand that. However, what is not sufficiently clear is why the price of products we need and take for granted are still rising endlessly while input costs are under control. Some of them have plateaued and come down but big businesses in the supermarket sector continue to post exceptional profits. This is the point. If it walks, talks and acts like price gouging at the check out, it may very well be. The question is: what does the Legislature do about it? I provided one solution. It is contained in the Bill I referred to. We should make the huge multinational supermarkets operating here publish their profits.”
“Frankly, there were fewer Members in attendance at the debate then than there are here this morning. Second, the amendment proposes that instead of using over €700 million to cut the rate of VAT on hospitality in budget 2026, the Government should use these hundreds of millions of euro to reduce child poverty with a targeted second tier of child benefit and other measures to provide income supports to households. There are the choices this House will have to make over the next couple of months - a hand up to children to give them every chance of a good life or a handout to Supermac's and McDonald's. I will not rehearse the figures on how the price of basic staples we all need have risen week on week over the past three years. They are on the record.”
“I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 1: After "compare prices and make informed choices" to insert: "calls on the Government to: — commit to passing the Competition and Consumer Protection (Unfair Prices) Bill 2023; and — instead of using over €700 million to cut the rate of Value Added Tax on hospitality in Budget 2026, to use these hundreds of millions to reduce child poverty with a targeted second tier of child benefit, and other measures to provide income supports to households.". I thank the Social Democrats for moving this motion. My amendment is designed to do two things. First, Government ought to allow for Labour's Competition and Consumer Protection (Unfair Prices) Bill 2023 to pass. That Bill was published in 2023 and debated on Second Stage in the House in late May.”
“Will the Minister confirm whether, if there is no mention in the review of a station reopening, it means the prospect of opening it, that is the station in Dunleer, is buried or gone once and for all?”
“As Deputy Smith said, we need four-tracking and suggestions have been made for a four-tracking initiative parallel to the M1 up to Clongriffin. It is an intriguing suggestion and absolutely makes sense. Let us get to the point where we can establish the Drogheda east station. That is how it is referred to in the plan. Let us get it up and running, even with a limited service for now to relieve congestion and provide those commuting opportunities from north Drogheda for the thousands of people who live there at the moment. Will the Minister commit to including the provision of the Drogheda east station in the policy initiative that I understand will be developed later this year based on the rail review proposals? The review does not mention Dunleer station at all. It was closed a few decades ago.”
“I will cut to the chase. North Drogheda objectively needs a train station. It should already be in place. I was on Louth County Council more than 20 years ago when we masterplanned the provision of 5,000 new homes. Half of those homes have been or are in the process of being built. These plans included a site for a train station, but then came the crash. Up to half of those homes, as I said, have been built or they are in process and we still do not have a new station. The profile of the new residents of that area suggests that a high proportion of them are commuters. Getting from that side of Drogheda, which will be Ireland's next city, Ireland's smallest city, to the train station can be a real challenge in the morning. DART+ will create capacity issues.”
“At the very least, if the Minister of State is to sign off on additional fair deal money, the industry should be expected to engage in a joint labour committee, JLC, employment regulation order arrangement for a fairer deal for their workers. This is what the State demands, for example, of the childcare sector, using the JLC system to ensure that State money is properly used to improve the pay and conditions of staff. The same should apply in the nursing home sector. If we learned anything from the scandalous deaths at Dealgan House Nursing Home in Dundalk in 2020, it should be that there should be a national clinical governance programme, operated by the HSE and applying to all nursing homes. In the other words, in the interests of all older people and all residents, there should be HSE oversight.”
“One is the calculated and deliberate crowding in of private operators over the course of 25 years, propped up by our own money and a regulatory regime that is hands-off and is not feared by a sector that owns almost 80% of all nursing homes in the State. Combined, this is a recipe for disaster. The perverse irony is that it is those vulnerable, ageing citizens, who paid for the tax incentives to develop a slew of private nursing homes in the 2000s, who are now paying the price themselves in the very homes built on their backs, paying on the double now with their dignity. We have an industry that constantly has its paw out for additional resources from the State.”
“The failures of care exposed by the media in recent weeks are not just a failure of one private nursing home operator. This is a failure by our State, a failure of public policy, a failure of regulation, and an abject failure to uphold the dignity of those who have no option but to put their care into others' hands. It would be naive of us to think that we have seen is anything other than the tip of the iceberg. Just look at Aoife Hegarty's reports today. The abuse, the poor care, the corners cut and older men and women lying alone in their own waste are because the company that operates the nursing homes that they call home will not employ the staff they need to appropriately run the places that aligns with the fluffy PR, what we see on their websites, and what they expect to see. This is the conclusion of two things.”
“It is a similar kind of effort we are trying to talk about today, bringing greater transparency to an area of public expenditure we should be much more interested in than we are. I had hoped the Minister of State would work with us and allow the Bill to get to Committee Stage for further interrogation and examination, in parallel with the processes that she referred to in her remarks. I again thank Deputy Farrell for bringing this important legislation to the House. It is a debate that does not get as much attention as it should, given the value of the resources we are talking about and the potential for a progressive public procurement system to drive change at every level of our society and economy. The Labour Party is pleased to support the principles of this legislation and the contents of the Bill.”
“I remember a number of years ago that an organisation was supported in being set up by my party colleague then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin. It was called Benefacts. It drove a huge amount of change and transparency in the not-for-profit sector. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform allowed this organisation to grow from itself - it is now known as the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation - and it provided lots of interesting information about levels of State funding for NGOs and other not-for-profit organisations, the number of staff they had, contracts they had and so on. It was buried a number of years ago, ridiculously. It brought great transparency to that sector.”
“That is why I am disappointed that we have not only a 12-month delay but a 24 month delay, which, in the context of how the Government tends to deal with Private Members' Bills these days, is unusual. I understand a review is ongoing at European Union level and that the national procurement strategy is also under way. The Minister of State also made the point that the e-form system in some way simplifies the situation and makes information publicly available. It does, but to the best of my recollection, it does not make all that information available in one place that is accessible in a way that those of us who are interested in these things we can navigate and which other firms can see.”
“No one should be afraid of transparency. We can differ all we want on policy goals. We have these debates, as we should, on the floor of this House, in committees and through the media, but transparency should be something everyone is interested in. On a number of occasions in her remarks, the Minister of State - I accept she said this in good faith and I have no doubt she was well advised by experienced officials - said we are talking all the time about simplification and deregulation and how that is the agenda of the European Union. This is actually about driving simplification. It may be in a way the Minister of State disagrees with, but I hope she should would concede that the principles of what Deputy Farrell is trying to achieve and which we support are positive.”
“There was very little about how we could drive environmental improvements or economic change and level the playing pitch for working people. That has to be at the heart of any review of public procurement in this country. This not something that should divide the House on philosophical or narrow ideological grounds. Questions of good public procurement and driving the change we need through public procurement should not be exclusive to those who describe ourselves as being on the left. Good government, value for money and responsible public spending should be matters that those who regard themselves as being on the centre or centre right should also value. It does not make sense. This is something we should all unite on. A huge amount of public resources go into public procurement every year and the outcomes are not what they might be.”
“This is when we take questions of pay out of the public procurement issue where employers compete on quality and standards rather than pay. Through replies to parliamentary questions, doing some additional research and uncovering the facts a number of years ago, it was found that a considerable number of contractors at that point providing services to the State that were ignoring EROs and simply paying staff what they wanted. Very little action was taken by line Departments to bring those contracted companies into line. In many ways, we speak out of both sides of our mouths when it comes to public procurement and driving change. I noted that in her remarks, the Minister of State mentioned that public procurement can propel changes in public service delivery and create jobs to stimulate private sector growth.”
“As some other states that we like to compare ourselves against in the European Union do, we need to ensure that we do not provide lucrative contracts to companies that do not, for example, recognise trade unions; frustrate the right of people to join trade unions; that do not welcome the concept of collective bargaining - it is quite the opposite; they are actively hostile to it; or that routinely ignore Labour Court recommendations while, at the same time, enjoying all of the benefits of the State's largesse when it comes to public procurement. I recall a number of years ago reintroducing employment regulation orders, EROs, that levelled the playing pitch, for example, for good contract security and cleaning companies and for their staff.”
“One side of the House appears to think that deregulation is a good thing; I do not. I believe in smart regulation and certainly not burdening SMEs or anybody else with ridiculous forms of regulation. Smart regulation supports good business and good business practice. It ensures a level playing pitch. That is why I want to move on to some of the remarks made by Deputy O'Reilly. We also ensure that there is a level playing pitch for SMEs, and indeed, for workers in this country when we use public procurement better, when we drive social and economic change and when we embed the principles, for example, of collective bargaining.”
“I think the Minister of State will agree, given she referenced this broadly in her remarks, that public procurement can be used as a way in which we can drive better outcomes, for example, for SMEs. I sought to do that a number of years ago in a different set of circumstances when the country was in greater difficulty economically than it is now to try to make sure that indigenous enterprise was assisted in obtaining a greater share of the pie through public procurement. SMEs with limited staff, facilities and supports available to them found navigation of the public procurement system quite difficult and quite onerous from an administrative point of view. There are ways in which we can simplify that. The House often divides when we talk about regulation. I believe in regulation but not overregulation. I believe in smart regulation.”