The Comptroller and Auditor General's report has called for more openness and transparency in the procurement and tendering processes employed by the Irish Prison Service (IPS) to ensure tax payers get better value for money.
Between 2004 and 2007 projects with an estimated value of €97 million were initiated by the IPS, based on a framework agreement reached in 2004 with a single contractor for a project that was worth just €2 million.
The report found that the process was “inadequate to signal the nature of the work” because the initial tender had been framed on the basis of a relatively routine accommodation unit in a low-security prison.
It said the subsequent inclusion of mainstream prisons and service-wide high security projects under the same the framework “was a diversification entailing challenges for a generic pricing model”.
It said that while the original framework agreement may have been sufficient to meet formal requirements, it wasnot
"adequate to underpin openness, transparency and competition in that the value of the estimated purchases was not indicated nor was the scale of the intended procurement”.
The report also found that some projects were commenced before contracts and costings had been finalised and said that 76 per cent of projects managed under the framework agreement agreed in 2004 did not have a formal contract governing the work carried out. “This exposed the IPS to considerable risk in the event of contract disputes."