A requirement for the likes of bus services and office supplies to be subject to tendering processes, in line with Government procurement policies, is damaging relations between schools and local communities, delegates at the TUI conference in Cork have been told.
Proposing a motion that called on the union’s executive to raise the matter with the Department of Education, Kate Ní Bhriain from Carlow said schools and colleges like hers were being obliged to buy from the lowest bidder, which was often the biggest company, and routinely, goods or services were coming from far outside the local community.
That, she argued, was bad for the environment but also came back to haunt educational establishments when they sought the support of their communities for sports teams, to buy the likes of iPads or pay for other activities.
“We are not buying our paper or ink from our local companies but we still want their names on the front of teams’ jerseys,” she said. “When we ask, they come back and say ‘Why don’t you ask the crowd you bought the cartridges from?’”
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The problem, she said after the motion was passed, is exacerbated by smaller firms becoming resigned to losing out to the larger ones and no longer participating in the process, with the result that the system becomes self-perpetuating.
“They’ll just say, ‘No, I’m not going to bother’, which then allows the monopoly to form.” That, she argues, can quickly undo the original benefit in terms of cost.
“And if you’re not using your local suppliers any more then there’s nobody to pick up the pieces when something goes wrong. You’ve got to try to get somebody from Cork.”
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In terms of buses, she points to the example of a coach that travelled from another county to pick kids up, bring them to Waterford and back again to Carlow then return to its base, empty.
“We’ve bus companies two minutes down the road but this one was travelling 100 kilometres empty. That just doesn’t make sense.
“Have we learned nothing from Covid? Local communities need to be supporting each other and schools are supposed to be at the heart of their communities. So, do we not have to be supporting those local businesses when we expect them to support us back? There has to be more to it than money.”
The motion was passed.
