No checks on 555 contracts worth total of €266m

A massive 555 State contracts costing €266m awarded last year failed to undergo any financial checks to ensure transpar-ency and fairness in the lucrative system.

An Garda Síochána, the HSE, and Department of Social Protection were among the biggest non-tendered spending.

While many of the costly contracts did not undergo checks due to time constraints, contract extensions and other reasons, the C&AG has raised concerns over a raft of deals.

The independent watchdog further warned that the level of non-tendering was almost certainly understated due to “inadequate systems” for checking how taxpayers’ money is being spent.

According to the major document, available at audgen.gov.ie, last year 555 Government contracts costing €266m were awarded without any tendering.

This is despite their costs meaning they had to undergo the check except in exceptional circumstances.

The figure is up 83 compared to 2010, when €79m worth of deals were untendered — a cost difference mainly due to the 2011 inclusion of the €183m Social Protection/An Post three-year welfare payments deal.

The most non-tendered areas were:

* The gardaí: 33 contracts costing €5m in 2010, 116 costing €15m last year;

* The HSE: 50 contracts costing €4m in 2010, 62 costing €8m last year;

* The Irish Prison Service: 124 contracts costing €14m in 2010, 77 costing €8m last year;

* The Department of Social Protection: four contracts costing an unknown amount in 2010, nine costing €184m last year;

* The Department of Justice and Equality: 45 contracts costing €10m in 2010, 29 costing €4m last year.

Eye-catching payouts include two deals worth a total of €730,000 — including a three-year deal costing €480,000 — provided to an unnamed special delivery unit adviser by the Department of Health.

This person is understood to be Dr Martin Connor, who hit the headlines earlier this year after it emerged the Stanford University research fellow was in Ireland just two weeks per month.

A further €2m was paid out to a group by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine as part of a TB-related badger cull.

Gardaí spent €2.3m more on non-tendered accommodation, catering, equipment and traffic during the May 2011 visits of US President Barack Obama and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth.

A further €900,000 was spent by the Office of Public Works on electronics and building works linked to a press centre at Dublin Castle for the same visits.

Of the 555 non-tendered contracts detailed, 40 were said to have avoided the transparency criteria due to urgency; 179 due to rollover contracts; 41 as the recipient was an “expert”; and 96 for unspecified reasons.

The C&AG has called for clearer categories to show whether financial safety rules have been met.

It said “explanations provided by departments and offices for not using competitive procurement processes are not precise and do not fall into mutually exclusive categories”.