Procurement rules should be eased to help schools, voluntary groups, sports clubs and local organisations with carrying out small projects with public money.
I have raised this matter with the Minister for Public Procurement, Patrick O’Donovan TD, to express my concerns and he has agreed to review the process as a result of my representations.
The current rules are too onerous. Schools, clubs and organisations are incurring additional costs by having to go through complex processes to get small works done.
For smaller jobs, they should be able to get a number of quotes and choose the best one. Instead, some of them are having to pay to bring in consultants to help them.
Equally many small contractors and sub-contractors lose out because they are not big enough businesses to be eligible to tender and this restricts their opportunity to expand.
This makes no sense for small projects and means that our small local businesses are missing out on jobs that they are more than qualified to carry out.
We need to look again at our procurement processes to give local trades people and construction companies an opportunity to compete.