Departmental Contracts

Tuesday, 1 July 2025

Ceisteanna (285, 286, 287, 288)

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Ceist:

285. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation whether all tenders worth €10 million or more for public service delivery are awarded on the lowest price tender received; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35265/25]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Ceist:

286. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the weighting or marks as a percentage of the total mark awarded to the lowest price applicants for public services tender competitions awarded by his Department in the past 5 years for tenders worth €10 million or more; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35266/25]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Ceist:

287. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation the weighting or marks as a percentage of the total mark awarded that is guaranteed to applicants who qualify for public services contract tender competitions run by his Department in the past five years for tenders worth €10 million or more; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35267/25]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Ceist:

288. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation to list all the public services contracts worth €10 million or more, which have been granted by himself or his forerunner for his Department, or other State bodies in the past five years; the value of each contract; the length of term of each; the expiration date of each contract; and whether any contract was discontinued during its term and for what reason. [35268/25]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation

I propose to take Questions Nos. 285, 286, 287 and 288 together.

I wish to advise the Deputy that a deferred reply will be issued to him in respect of these Parliamentary Questions, in line with Standing Order 52(1)(b).

The following deferred reply was received under Standing Orders.

The information requested by the Deputy in respect of my Department is set out in the table below. Should the Deputy wish to establish the position in respect of all Government Departments, separate Questions should be submitted to the relevant Ministers. There were a total of 11 contracts awarded by my Department over the last 5 years valued at over €10 million. In all 11 cases, the contract was awarded to the lowest price tender received, although this was not of course the only award criteria. The relevant details are set out in the table.

The Deputy will note that the values are given in bands rather than specific figures. This has been done to provide as much information to the Deputy as possible whilst avoiding any possible prejudicing of the Department’s position in future procurements. My Department also does not provide details of marks awarded to individual companies in the procurement process due to reasons of commercial sensitivity and to avoid prejudicing the Department’s position in future procurement. Finally, my Department does not provide detail on suppliers of ICT services and the exact amount spent is not provided as this has the potential to increase the cybersecurity threat vector by providing those with nefarious motives information that could support their endeavours.

I can confirm that all live contracts are still active and that none of the contracts have expired or were discontinued.

Contract Description	Duration of contract	Expiration date	Value of Contract (€) (band)	Mark of lowest price as % of total marks	Min % in order to qualify for tender	Lowest Price Tender Awarded
Supply, Installation and Maintenance of Dark Fibre pairs and Customer Premise Equipment (CPE) for Wide Area Connectivity Services	84 months	October 2029	€50-€60m	90%	N/A	Yes
Dark Fibre Wide Area Network Connectivity Services	120 months	June 2033	€15-€25m	90%	N/A	Yes
Dark Fibre Wide Area Network Connectivity Services	120 months	June 2033	€15-€25m	90%	N/A	Yes
Dark Fibre / Wavelength Wide Area Network Connectivity Services and Customer Premise Equipment	120 months	October 2033	€90-€100m	90%	N/A	Yes
Applications development life-cycle, Web design and development, DevOps and Release Management services.	24 months	June 2024	€15-€25m	30%	42%	Yes
External ICT Technical Support Services (Provided by teams of resources)	36 months	June 2025	€15-€25m	30%	42%	Yes
Provision of Recruitment Agency Services	24 months	September 2026	€5-€15m	40%	40%	Yes
Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) Software as a Service (SaaS)	48 months	February 2026	€15-€25m	40%	N/A	Yes
Contract to facilitate purchase of Core Leaf and Spine switches under OGP framework for 3 years (36 months), with 2 possible 12 month extensions available	36 months	May 2027	€5-€15m	50%	N/A	Yes
ISW018F SRFT Microsoft Licensing Services	36 months	December 2024	€10-€20m	100%	N/A	Yes
SRFT for the provision of the Microsoft Solution Renewals and Associated Services for the Department for the renewal of Microsoft Enterprise subscription	24 months	September 2023	€10-€20m	40%	N/A	Yes

More generally, with regard to the weighting or marks in the procurement process, as part of the pre-tendering phase to each procurement competition, when preparing their tender documentation, a Contracting Authority will set out the award criteria that will be applied in the award process, together with the relative weightings of each criterion. These criteria should be informed by the development of a procurement strategy specific to the need in question. The Public Procurement Directive 2014/24/EU and its transposing statutory instrument (S.I. No. 284/2016) provide that public contracts are awarded to the Most Economically Advantageous Tender. To identify the most economically advantageous tender, the contract award decision should be based on:

• Price, or

• Cost, using a cost-effectiveness approach such as lifecycle costing, or

• The best price-quality ratio to be assessed on the basis of criteria including qualitative, environmental or social aspects, linked to the subject matter of the contract, or

• Quality only where the cost element is fixed price.

Question No. 286 answered with Question No. 285.

Question No. 287 answered with Question No. 285.

Question No. 288 answered with Question No. 285.