AN ALARM COMPANY which met with Environment Minister Alan Kelly during a tendering process says that it did so to raise concerns over the structure of the tendering process.
Two members of Task Alarms management met with Kelly and Labour TD Brendan Ryan shortly before they were awarded 60% of a state contract for the management of alarms.
The tender was run through Pobal, a state agency under Kelly’s auspices.
Two weeks ago, AAA TD Paul Murphy said in the Dáil that “very serious irregularities occurred” in holding the meeting. He said that the meeting was unusual.
“This meeting happened just days after the deadline for tenders had ended and while Pobal, an agency under the Minister’s Department, were assessing the tenders.”
Task Alarms said in a statement to TheJournal.ie that the meeting was not designed to lobby Kelly for the contracts, but rather to raise issues with how the tender was run.
Task has been established in Ireland since 1991 and was among the first companies involved in the Seniors Alert Scheme which was set up in 1995 to provide alarms to over 65s.
That system was reviewed in 2009 and this year, for the first time, the tender was handled by Pobal. Task says that this change was done without consultation and has made the process more complicated.
“Like hundreds of other community groups and some other suppliers, Task had serious concerns about the transfer of the scheme to Pobal,” the company says.
Task wrote to Brendan Ryan in 2014, outlining their concerns, including the lack of a European standard for telecare equipment (monitored alarms) being a requirement in the tender.
“By not adhering to the EU minimum standard for telecare equipment we were concerned that over a period of time, industry standards throughout the county would erode, putting lives at risk.”
The meeting
The meeting took place on 10 December, some six days after documents show Pobal evaluated and ranked the submissions.
The Task statement says, like Kelly’s previous statements, that they did not know the Minister would be there.
It was never stated or intimated to us, that we would be able to speak with the Minister, or that he knew we would be there. The meeting was never a secret as has been implied by some people since. Immediately after the meeting, we told community groups that although we had met with the Minister, we were not hopeful that anything would change.
Task say that they raised the lack of consultation and were told one had taken place with “key suppliers”.
They add that they raised concerns over the safety standards and the division of the country into 10 regions for the awarding of the contract.
We certainly had no intention of attempting to influence our rankings in the tender process at any stage, as has been suggested by some. It was something that had not even crossed our minds. From the start we had been against the whole transfer, because it had not included an open pre consultation process to take on board the concerns of community groups, older people and suppliers.
Kelly has maintained that he did not know who would be in the meeting or that he knew what would be discussed.
In a statement to TheJournal.ie, he said:
“This meeting was of brief duration (15 minutes) and the Minister made it very clear to the delegation present that the tendering process was solely the role of Pobal.”
Pobal maintains that there is no problem with the tendering process.
Deputy Murphy’s comments were made under parliamentary privilege. For that reason, comments for this article are closed.
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