Cheese for Garda College, a 'gracious' chatbot, and €7m worth of water coolers — State tenders go up for grabs
One of the tenders being offered by the State is for €220,000 worth of cheese — including feta, cheddar, parmesan, and blue cheese — for the Garda College. Stock picture
Cheese for Garda recruits, a "gracious" chatbot for a State agency, and nearly €7m for water coolers are among State tenders up for grabs.
According to tender documents submitted online, the Garda College in Templemore is on the hunt for a supplier to provide cheese and dairy products to its restaurant and shop.
The 13 types of cheeses required include cottage cheese, feta, cheddar, parmesan, blue-veined cheese, and blue cheese.
The force is also looking for soft, hard, grated, powdered, and “other” cheese, as well as cheese spreads.
Responses for the €220,000 contract — which runs for 48 months — need to be submitted by the start of next month.
The tender is one of a number advertised in recent days.
Solas, the State further education and training agency, is looking for a “graceful” chatbot to simulate basic human conversations and interactions with visitors to one of its websites.
As well as being able to answer a clearly-defined number and variety of questions, the chatbot must be “available” 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It must also deliver a minimum of 80% accuracy in replying to a question and, the tender documents state, “this would include the Chatbot understanding when it does not know the answer”.
The documents also say “the Chatbot must handle unanswered questions gracefully” and should “fail gracefully if technical issues are encountered”.
While it is not immediately clear how much the chatbot contract is for, the State values its water cooler contract in the region of €6.7m, excluding VAT.
The contract is for the supply of bottled water coolers, water bottles, point of use coolers (mains fed) and the servicing of all water coolers.
The contract also includes the collection, transportation, sanitisation, and maintenance of all equipment and on-time deliveries.
“The goods requirements range from routine collection of empty water drums and delivery of new drums to lower volume ad-hoc collection and delivery,” it also says.
