The aim of the Bill is to provide greater regulation of publicly procured capital works.
According the Office of Government Procurement’s most recent Spend and Tendering analysis (2018), capital works are the largest component of public procurement spending coming in at over €5 billion.
However, one problem in getting value for money for taxpayers is the issue of cost overruns arising from abnormally low tender bids (low ball offers). This occurs when a supplier make a very low offer in order to win the contract, but then incurs additional costs due to the unrealistically low offer, which are passed onto the taxpayer.