Bord Bia spent €1.2 million last year without going through the proper public procurement and tendering rules, its chair Larry Murrin has said.

In a note accompanying Bord Bia's financial statements for 2025, which have been laid before the Oireachtas, Murrin said that Bord Bia procurement policy is supported by procurement guidelines which set out the requirements and processes for public procurement.

Murrin also said that, during 2025, additional control activities were implemented via targeted training and procurement seminars for staff.

The Bord Bia chair added that these procurement controls, which are monitored through expenditure analysis four times a year, identified that expenditure of some €1.2 million was incurred without a competitive tendering procedure taking place.

Such a procedure should have took place in accordance with procurement guidelines.

However, this figure of €1.2 million is less than half the amount that was spent in non-compliance with procurement rules in 2024, which was €2.6 million.

According to Murrin, this shows "improved adherence to procurement policies following the strengthening of controls during 2025".

The Bord Bia chair added that remedial controls are taking place in 2026 to "address these instances and to ensure that appropriate contractual arrangements are established".

The financial statements were also accompanied by a statement from the comptroller and auditor general of Ireland Seamus McCarthy, who oversees the certification of financial statements from public bodies in Ireland.

The auditor general said that Bord Bia's statement on internal control "discloses that a material level of non-compliance with procurement rules occurred in respect of contracts that operated in 2025".

"It also states that Bord Bia is undertaking measures to address the procurement issues noted," the auditor general said.

Bord Bia response

In a statement to Agriland, Bord Bia said the €1.2 million in non-compliant procurement in 2025 represented 2.1% of its total expenditure.

"All of the expenditure was authorised and incurred for legitimate business purposes," the statement added.

The agency said that the non-compliant cases arose in situations where contracts expired before new procurement arrangements were completed; individual purchases by different teams cumulatively exceeded the relevant tender threshold; or required documentation was not fully completed at the time of the expenditure.

"Bord Bia takes its public procurement obligations seriously and has addressed each case through contract updates and the completion of required documentation," the statement said.

"It has also strengthened supplier-spend monitoring, contract management and staff guidance to improve compliance across the organisation," it added.

Annual report

The financial statements follow on from Bord Bia's annual report for 2025, which was laid before the Oireachtas in June.

That report showed that consultancy costs incurred by Bord Bia more than doubled in 2025.

Last year, total consultancy costs for the Irish Food Board stood at over €1.96 million, up from €850,000 in the previous year.

Consultancy costs include the cost of external advice to management and exclude outsourced ‘business as usual’ functions.

Bord Bia's legal costs were recorded as €191,000 in 2025, down from €263,000 in the previous year.