As stated by the Tánaiste, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten, is to make a statement in the House this afternoon. I seek clarity from the Tánaiste on the central issue. Despite what the Taoiseach said in the House yesterday, it is inappropriate for a Minister to have any contact with a bidder during a procurement process, and every Minister knows this. As a former Minister with responsibility for procurement for five years, I note this was made crystal clear and drilled into everybody. The Minister, Deputy Naughten, said that he has no hand, act or part in the bidding process. This displays a fundamental lack of understanding of his role under the Constitution and the law. The Minister is in charge of this procurement process, ultimately. Putting it mildly, in meeting the bidder he may have contaminated the process. He certainly has opened it up to legal challenge. We know that there have been three engagements involving the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and Mr. McCourt, whose investment firm is currently leading the broadband consortium that is bidding for the contract. The Minister, as we know, bought Mr. McCourt lunch in April. Bizarrely, at the same time he was standing in this Chamber to apologise for having taken a phone call from a lobbyist in another contract. The Minister told the House that everybody had his telephone number and that he took a call when he should not have done. The House gave him a fool's pardon at that stage. At the same time, he was arranging a lunch for a bidder in a bigger contract. The Minister had to be reminded by an official yesterday that he met Mr. McCourt on 26 June. There was no public announcement in this regard and, as has been said, the minutes of that meeting have not been released. We know that in the New York meeting, there was a discussion on this matter, although it is said that the Minister was not directly involved. It is taking it to extremes to say that there was a discussion on the matter between the bidder and officials and that while the Minister was sitting at the table, he was not involved in that discussion. This just is not how it works. Does the Tánaiste believe these meetings were appropriate? In light of the standards set by this Government, does he think that it was appropriate for the Minister, Deputy Naughten, to have these meetings?

We learned in recent days, that the former lead in the consortium, Enet, is now relegated to being a supplier and that the Irish Infrastructure Fund, a fund owned by the State, has bought Enet in its entirety. We now have the bizarre situation whereby the State is going to contract a private supplier - an investment company that has nothing do with telecoms - to hire a company, Enet, which the State owns, to provide broadband at a significant cost. Is the Tánaiste concerned about any of these matters?

Following on from the Deputy's remarks, I am sure he will agree that it would be inappropriate for me to discuss the detail of the procurement process and the proposal that is currently being assessed. The Deputy and I know that Enet is a company that manages metropolitan area networks, MANS, in which the State and the private sector have invested a great deal of amount. The company installs fibre rings around towns across the country and uses this fibre network to connect into a national broadband-----

I ask the Tánaiste to answer the questions I put to him.

I will come back to them. The Deputy has cast aspersions perhaps on the appropriateness of Enet being part of a solution being proposed by a bidder.

I did no such thing.

He did the opposite.

My understanding is that Mr. McCourt is a telecoms investor and as such he is not someone that has nothing to do with telecoms.

He is not a telecoms man. He is a man who owns a financial investment company.

He is a telecoms investor. He has invested in Enet in the past and he is now the lead bidder in a procurement process that is at a delicate stage.

On Ministers meeting bidders-----

A bidder.

-----it is not appropriate for a Minister to discuss the detail of any procurement process or bidding process while that tendering process is ongoing.

May a Minister sit beside an official as he or she is doing so?

Deputy Howlin will be aware from his time in government that this bidding process has been ongoing for over three years. It has involved multiple different players in the Irish telecommunications industry. The idea that the Minister with responsibility for telecommunications would not have had discussions with the head of Vodafone, Eir or others-----

I did not ask about that.

A Minister should not do so during a tender process.

-----over the past three years, because this tendering process has involved some of their companies, is not realistic.

The guidelines are crystal clear.

They are crystal clear. It is inappropriate for a Minister to discuss the detail of a procurement process or a bid in the context of that Minister's Department assessing that bid. It is important to say that the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment has nothing to do with the assessment process of the bid in technical terms.

The Minister is the person in charge under the law.

The Minister's responsibility is to come to Government for funding requests and to ensure that the process remains on track and on time. He has no role in terms of finalising the recommendation in regard to the bidding process. There needs to be, and has been, a separation between the Minister and his office and what is being assessed by the Department.

I asked the Tánaiste whether it was appropriate for the Minister, Deputy Naughten, to have two meetings with the lead bidder in the most significant contract being overseen by his Department. It is a simple and straightforward question. I have had engagements with procurement officers in the context of the protocols for this area, which I drew up during my time as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. Interestingly, when I tried to access them online at the weekend I noted they have been removed from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform website. Under those protocols, a designated official with a designated email address was the only point of contact in a bidding process. Ministerial staff and the Minister were debarred from having any contact with a tenderer during the tender process. This was rigidly adhered to and, I believe, is still rigidly adhered to in most Departments. It is particularly bizarre that this is not the case in the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, in particular because following on from the Moriarty tribunal, the guidelines are clear that there should be no meetings between a Minister and bidders during the bidding process. Any meetings between officials - there should be a designated official - should be minuted and published, whether or not commercially sensitive.

Thank you, Deputy.

Why do these protocols not apply in this case?

For reasons that I have outlined, namely, this has been a long procurement and tendering process that has involved multiple players in the telecommunications industry in Ireland. As Minister with responsibility for telecommunications, Deputy Naughten would have been at events where-----

Not with the lead bidder in the final stages of a contract.

For much of this process, there was not a lead bidder. Two other-----

There was at this stage. The Minister went to New York to meet him.

-----companies were part of this process but pulled out. There is one remaining bidder. It would be, and is, inappropriate for a Minister to discuss with this bidder any detail that relates to the bidding process or the procurement process.

I am sure the Minister did not do so.

The Minister, Deputy Naughten, wants an opportunity to come before this House to explain that he maintained a separation between both processes.