AN GARDA SÍOCHÁNA has entered into a public procurement process to secure a provider to offer a nationwide vehicle recovery service. 

With almost 2,000 cars garda vehicles towed across the State in 2016, the gardaí said they are looking for an economical, efficient and environmentally friendly service for official vehicles that have been rendered immobile.

This can happen for a variety of reasons, such as traffic accidents, mechanical breakdowns, malicious damage/fires and other incidents. The provider that wins the tender will also need to provide jumpstarts for official vehicles.

The contract will last for a maximum of four years, with an estimated total value of €250,000 a year.

Criteria

There are a number of necessary requirements that must be met for the successful contractor.

This includes providing a freephone 24-hour, 365-day central contact number.

The tenderer must provide a priority service to the recovery of a garda vehicle from the scene of an accident “at any time and in any part of ireland”, with removal happening within two hours of the initial request. 

In other cases, a recovery must always take place within a 24-hour period.

Recovery may be required from any part of the country, but at no stage should the vehicles be removed from the Republic of Ireland during an operation.

Marked garda vehicles must also be covered whilst being transported. 

The contractor must document the collection of vehicles and its subsequent delivery.

Demand led

While the gardaí said it isn’t possible to provide any guarantee on the volume of tows or distances to be covered as the service is demand led, it did provide a breakdown of the recoveries made in 2016 to illustrate the kind of service required.

In the Dublin Metropolitan Region, there were 784 jobs ordered and this was the highest by far. 

Across other regions, a distance of around 146,000km were covered by those towing the vehicles.

A breakdown of the 2,745 vehicles currently within the garda fleet was also provided. 

Tenderers must also prove they all have all of the personnel, training and equipment at their disposal to carry out the service.

The deadline to respond to this tender is 3pm on 31 January, with the service to be rolled out in the first half of 2019.