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THE PAST PERFORMANCES of companies bidding for future public construction projects should be used as a factor in the EU procurement regulations, the Taoiseach has said.
His comments in the wake of a row between BAM – the lead construction company behind the delayed and expensive National Children’s Hospital – the Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly and the board of the future hospital yesterday.
In a letter to Simon Harris on Friday, Donnelly put to him it was in the view of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, which is responsible for the hospital, that BAM was approaching the project on the basis of “extracting as much money from the Irish taxpayer as possible”.
He added in his letter to the Taoiseach that BAM was “holding the State to ransom”.
Procurement rules in the EU say governments must be transparent and equal, hold an open competition, and have sound procedural management structures when deciding to award firms with public contracts.
It is done so so that European competition and commerce rules are upheld. But many, since the continued delays and increasing cost of the National Children’s Hospital in Dublin, say it’s now time for that to change.
The National Children’s Hospital, which is now years overdue, has cost the state €2.2 billion to date. It had previously been marked for completion in 2020 with a budget of €650 million.
BAM yesterday said that it had reviewed the contents of Donnelly’s letter to Taoiseach and “rejects in the strongest terms the misleading, ill-informed and incorrect allegations levelled against it”.
Speaking with reporters today in New York, Harris said that it is time that the EU seek to change the factors taken into account by Governments when deciding to award contracts and procure services in the future.
“We do need to look at rules around procurement. We need to also look, I think, at EU rules around procurement.
“It’s really important that Ireland gets the best value and that people live up to the commitments that they gave, in terms of the delivery of the hospital. They need to do that.
“I think we need to make sure that EU procurement rules can allow past performance to be factored into the awarding of public contacts in future.”
He added that Government will impose further penalties on contracts, such as the refusal to provide any further funding to the project after the last increase of €500 million, and it will also be contesting excising procurement claims that it deems “inappropriate”.
BAM has recently been given the cross-border contract for the €60m Narrow Water Bridge project in Co. Louth and the tendering process for the National Maternity Hospital is currently underway.
Tánaiste Micheál Martin was asked in May why the firm is receiving future Government contracts, to which he said it would not be possible to disallow contractors, who have previously not delivered on budget or on time, from receiving contracts.
He added that he believed it was inappropriate for politicians to “get involved” with the awarding of public contracts and that there are set rules for the procedure.
Includes reporting by Emma Hickey
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I’m an Irish programmer, living abroad, and would like to work remotely for an Irish company. (It’s always a good excuse for visiting home every now and then.) Even with the skills shortage, it seems that no employer is interested.
I’m also in a similar position (living/working in the UK), I like to check in every now and then with job opportunities in Ireland and it’s always 3-5 years industry experience. It seems to be case (to me at least) that you have to move abroad to get your experience before you can come back and apply for these jobs.
I think everyone can agree (having myself being in a similar position) that there is NO SKILLS SHORTAGE.
It is a shortage of desired experience.
Every company requires 3-5 years it seems. None are interested in investing in staff to train/mentor them.
My advice would be similar to other posters for those with no experience: learn how to build a phone app, or try to improve a piece of software from the likes of Sourceforge.net Then put that at the top of your CV.
Exactly – nobody cares if you got 86% in second year in Software Systems – they just want to know what you can do.
I don’t blame companies for wanting experience though – why take on a 22 year old when you can take on a 32 year old? Not like in 30 years time you’ll regret that the older guy is retiring sooner than the younger guy, in the software industry :-P
In my own case I have six years of industry experience with Java, but no one is taking the bait.
Spot on. If you don’t have a github.com account with some interesting projects or contributions, don’t bother.
Software engineering is one of the few jobs that you can MAKE your own experience. As someone who hires developers, I’d sooner hire someone with an interesting github portfolio than someone with more qualifications than you can shake a stick at.
It’s pretty easy to spot people interested in building cool things.
You’re a dying breed Dave. Outside of google very few companies are looking for software developers who are in any way creative. However, they are increasingly looking for staff who are multidisciplinary. Agile is pushing things that way… especially devops.
Software companies want experienced engineers so there is the catch how can you have a constant flow of graduates when they can’t get jobs becuase companies want experienced people.
The other flip side the money is crap starting off.
Money isn’t crap starting off – it’s in line with most other jobs of similar expertise. Companies wanting experienced people is a nuisance though, but I’m not sure how to resolve that.
Software is one of those fields though where you can gain expertise without experience. If your CV has a link to your website, your GitHub profile or some mobile app you’ve worked on they shouldn’t care how long you’ve been working at it.
If you’re passionate about software and have the skills to match, you have the ability to convey this to an employer :-)
Sofware developers are the highest paid graduates of any field. They are even paid more than intern doctors and graduate engineers. Of course those fields catch up fairly quickly.
Is there a list of these vacancies/job specifications?
There is no skills shortage. There is however a bias towards 25-35 year olds, with 5 years experience in a very specific and narrow skill set.
The employers (HR departments) have absolutely no comprehension that a programmer is a programmer, that’s the “skill”, the programming language is usually pretty irrelevant.
If you are over 45 years old, then the employers pretty much ignore you and your wealth of experience.
Irish companies have become very Americanised in the practice of promoting (very) young people to managerial positions, who are then biased towards hiring people their own age.
So what skills are we short of? If it’s technical that’s something to work towards for our universities and students, if it’s language of course it’s going to be easier for people of other nationalities.
So half are picked by Irish residents !
Very poor CV screening, interviewing and technical tests result in a lot of false negatives. I was recently made redundant, and have just been through the process. I picked up a job pretty quickly, but I am genuinely surprised by the lack of opportunities for some of the more junior guys, given that I would be happy to work with all of them again and they have access to great references from everyone at the company.
I constantly see companies that are doing web-development asking about program complexity and solving scalability problems that they more than likely don’t have. If they do have these problems, they are self inflicted by people reinventing the wheel rather than using something off the shelf. Another thing I noticed is the asking of questions assuming knowledge of specific tools. Web summit insisted on degrees from Universities only, with a clear bias towards Trinity college.
I personally would prefer to hire someone with less experience of these kind of things, and the simple ability to do simple things correctly and take direction. I don’t think I would have a problem hiring in the current environment.
Given that we are in the middle of a tech bubble, we should not spend too much time trying to correct these problems at the expense of the exchequer and let the companies who have the problem deal with these self inflicted problems themselves.
I’m an Irish IT graduate with over 10 yrs experience. I’ve taken time out to raise my child. I’ve been trying to get back to work for the last couple of years & companies are unwilling to even respond to my CV. I understand the concepts, am easily retrained & willing to work. It’s not a shortage of skills, I think it’s that companies want an exact set of skills & aren’t willing to re-train people. I know I’m not the only one in this position.
You’re right. as an employer, it’s not efficient to hire someone that will take weeks or months to retrain. The onus is on you to skill up. Not your employer. Ad I’ve stated before, in IT, it’s very VERY easy to upskill and create your own experience in the form of personal projects.
I’m still shocked at those who don’t understand this. Nobody owes you a job and being out of work for 10 years means you’re practically starting from scratch anyway. But that doesn’t matter, it’s very easy to start and build something yourself to modernise your skill set.
I’d sooner hire a 17 year old who just finished their leaving with a decent github profile then someone with 3 masters and no effort put into keeping themselves relevant.
Too few jobseekers actualky put themselves in the shoes of a potential employer.
have your say