The Minister of State for Finance, Mr Tom Parlon, has insisted that there is no "systematic problem" with procurement procedures in the Office of Public Works after a consultancy report identified multiple breaches of EU and Government procurement rules.
Mr Parlon wrote on Friday to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, stating that the flaws highlighted in the report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) were a matter of serious concern to him and to the chairman and commissioners of the OPW.
The report led to sharp Opposition criticism of Mr Parlon's performance. Labour said a report so critical of procedures in such a public body would lead to the resignation of the Minister responsible "in virtually any other democratic country".
The Minister of State is expected to write a similar letter to the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, about the report which found that EU procedures were breached in some of the OPW contracts for work at special meetings relating to Ireland's EU presidency.
Mr Parlon is understood to have told Mr McCreevy in his letter that the problems identified in the report related only to activities at the OPW unit in Dublin Castle. These largely related to the "exceptional procurement requirements" arising from the presidency, he said.
Mr Parlon was also reported to have said that there was no basis to draw any inference from the PwC report in relation to procurement procedures or activities generally in the OPW.
He declared himself satisfied that the OPW conformed to the "highest possible" standards.Mr Parlon is understood to have told Mr McCreevy that he fully accepted the findings in relation to the shortcomings outlined.
He also pointed out that the report said that many, if not most, of the contracts for presidency events followed a competitive process "albeit on a restricted tendering basis".
Mr Parlon said this approach was adopted generally because of a limited number of known suppliers that could supply or perform the service to the standard required for presidency events. He pointed out that the number of ministerial events increased from an initial seven to 32.
