‘Discriminatory’ tendering process at Cork County Council to be reviewed
The claims were made by Fianna Fáil councillor Donal O’Rourke who said in some instances, builders who have a good track record of delivering local authority projects are being overlooked because they have not been involved in a certain type of construction before.
Mr O’Rourke pointed to the case of building swimming pools. Cork County Council is currently tendering for a pool in Dunmanway.
He said a lot of smaller, locally based firms would not have experience of building swimming pools, but could easily do the job if they were given the chance.
But because they have not built such facilities before, council officials will not deem them as suitably qualified, he said.
“The current system discriminates against some builders. The policy [for tendering] is over descriptive. I suggest it favours the bigger contractors.
He told senior council management: “We should now devise a set of ground rules which are non-discriminatory.”
Fine Gael councillor John O’Sullivan agreed and said the current policy had concerned him for some time.
Labour councillor Paula Desmond, a solicitor, told officials they should immediately initiate a process to review the current criteria.
Acting county manager Declan Daly said the criteria laid down for deciding on an appropriate contractor was decided at national level.
“We’re no different from any other public body advertising for such works,” said Mr Daly.
“People have challenged our position in the past, but nobody has successfully overturned our policy.”
He added that there was “categorically no bias against local operators”.
However, Fianna Fáil councillor Dan Fleming said the designs of buildings were changing all the time and any good builder would simply follow an architect’s drawings.
Mr O’Rourke had the last say when he again maintained the criteria “mitigates against a smaller contractor”.
He won widespread support from colleagues of all parties and council official finally agreed to carry out a review of the policy.
