How to Run an Irish Public Tender: A Procurement Officer's Guide

This guide is for the buy-side. If you work for an Irish public body, a department, local authority, the HSE, a state agency, a university or a semi-state, and you have to procure goods, services or works, this is the process you’ll follow and the tools that help at each step.

The full legal framework is in EU Directive 2014/24/EU, transposed by Statutory Instrument 284 of 2016. Below-threshold rules are set out in OGP Circular 10/14. We won’t repeat the regulations verbatim, instead, this is the practical sequence of decisions you’ll make.

Step 1, Define the requirement

Before any procurement activity, you need a clear answer to four questions:

1. What outcome does the public body need? (Not what to buy, what problem to solve.)
2. What is the realistic total value over the full contract life including any renewals?
3. What is the timeline to award and to delivery?
4. What budget authority has been approved? (You cannot competitively tender without sanctioned funds.)

Ambiguity here is the single biggest source of failed procurements. It propagates into a vague RFT, vague evaluation, and a contract no-one can hold the supplier to.

Step 2, Confirm the threshold and procedure

The total contract value determines which rules apply. Use the Threshold Checker to confirm:

• Below €5,000: direct purchase, value-for-money documented
• €5,000 – €25,000: three written quotes minimum
• €25,000 – EU threshold: competitive process, advertised on eTenders
• At or above the EU threshold: full EU procedures, advertised on eTenders and TED

EU thresholds for the 2026–2027 cycle (excluding VAT, effective 1 January 2026): €140,000 for central-government supplies/services, €216,000 for other authorities, €5,404,000 for works, €750,000 for social and other specific services. Verify current figures on procurement.ie before pricing.

Then choose a procedure:

• Open: anyone can bid. Default for straightforward requirements. Lowest process risk.
• Restricted: two-stage: shortlist by capability, then invite to tender. Use when you expect a large field and want to manage evaluation cost.
• Competitive procedure with negotiation: for complex requirements where dialogue with bidders adds value.
• Competitive dialogue: for particularly complex contracts where the solution itself needs co-design.
• Innovation partnership: rare; for genuinely novel solutions that don’t exist on the market.

If you’re not sure, use Open. It’s the most defensible default and the least likely to be challenged.

Step 3, Market sounding (optional but valuable)

For non-trivial contracts, run a market sounding before publishing the RFT. This is allowed and encouraged. It helps you:

• Confirm the market can deliver what you’re asking for
• Calibrate budget against realistic supplier costs
• Identify risks the market sees that you haven’t
• Ensure your specification is not unintentionally restrictive

Methods include a Prior Information Notice (PIN) on eTenders, a request for information (RFI), a published industry day, or 1:1 supplier briefings (provided you offer the same access to all comers).

Browse recent award notices on eTenders filtered by CPV code to identify the active Irish supplier base before you start.

Step 4, Draft the RFT

A standards-compliant RFT typically contains:

• Instructions to tenderers: process, deadlines, format, contact
• Specification: what is being bought
• Selection criteria: minimum supplier suitability (turnover, references, insurance, certifications)
• Award criteria: how bids will be scored, with weightings
• Conditions of contract: including the OGP standard contract or a sectoral form (e.g. PWC for public works)
• Form of tender: pricing schedule, quality response template
• ESPD (European Single Procurement Document) for above-threshold

Use the RFT Clause Library for plain-English versions of the most common Irish RFT clauses, eligibility, MEAT scoring, standstill, conflicts of interest, GDPR, sub-contracting, social value.

Award criteria is where most disputes arise. Be specific:

• State each criterion and its weighting in points or percent
• For quality criteria, publish the scoring matrix (what 1, 3, 5 looks like)
• Don’t allow undisclosed sub-criteria to creep in at evaluation stage, that’s challengeable

Step 5, Publish

• Above EU threshold: notice goes to TED first, then mirrored to eTenders. The published date for time-limit calculations is the despatch date to TED.
• Below EU threshold (above €25k): publish on eTenders only.

Allow at least the minimum time limits in the directive, 30 days from despatch for an Open procedure, longer if you want serious bids on a complex contract. SMEs need realistic time to mobilise.

Step 6, Manage clarifications

Suppliers will ask questions. The rules:

• All questions must be answered, anonymised, and posted to all interested parties simultaneously
• Don’t answer privately to one bidder, that’s a fairness breach
• If a question reveals a defect in your RFT, issue a corrigendum and consider extending the deadline

Step 7, Evaluate

• Convene the evaluation panel before bids open. Document who’s on it and that they’ve signed conflict-of-interest declarations.
• Apply only the published criteria. No sub-criteria invented mid-evaluation.
• Score independently, then moderate. Keep contemporaneous notes, they are the audit trail.
• Use the OGP guidance on consensus scoring if marks differ widely.

Step 8, Award decision and standstill

For above-threshold contracts:

1. Issue regret letters to unsuccessful bidders setting out the winner, scores, and the relative advantages.
2. Observe the mandatory 14-day standstill period before signing the contract.
3. If a bidder challenges, do not sign until the challenge is resolved.
4. After standstill, sign the contract and publish the Contract Award Notice on TED (above threshold) or eTenders.

Below-threshold contracts have no statutory standstill, but a 10-day voluntary standstill is good practice and reduces the risk of judicial review.

Step 9, Mobilise and manage

The procurement effort is wasted if contract management is sloppy. Set up:

• Kick-off meeting with the supplier within 2 weeks of contract signature
• Performance KPIs and a reporting cadence
• Change-control process for in-flight scope changes
• A regret-letter de-brief offer for unsuccessful bidders, improves market relations

Step 10, Capture lessons

After award, document:

• What went well
• Where the process was slow or contested
• Whether the spec elicited the responses you wanted
• Whether the market response matched your expectations

Feed this into the next procurement. Public bodies that procure repeatedly without a lessons-learned loop tend to repeat the same mistakes.

Where TenderWatch helps

Common pitfalls

1. Disaggregation: splitting a contract into smaller lots solely to avoid the EU threshold. Explicitly prohibited.
2. Restrictive specification: requirements that only one supplier can meet (named brands, bespoke certifications). Open the spec or include “or equivalent”.
3. Award criteria drift: adding undisclosed sub-criteria at evaluation. Stick to what was published.
4. Insufficient time: minimum statutory time limits are minimums, not targets. Complex bids need 6 – 8 weeks.
5. Skipping the standstill: even one day short of 14 days makes the award challengeable.
6. No documentation trail: every decision needs a written rationale. The C&AG may audit.

Further reading

• Office of Government Procurement guidance
• Procurement glossary, terms used in this guide
• Procurement Thresholds 2026
• How to Tender for Government Contracts in Ireland, the supplier-side perspective