Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation

‘NAMED PARTY’ recently participated in a tender process run by Tusla – the Child and Family Agency (“Tusla”) for the provision of legal services relating to Lot 18 - Special Care (the “Legal Services”), notice of which was originally published by contract notice published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 4 November 2020 (Notice 2020/S 217-531499). By letter dated 13 July 2021, and received by NAMED PARTY on that date (the “Regret Letter”), Tusla informed us that we had been unsuccessful in the tender process, and that the preferred bidder was NAMED PARTY. We understand that the Office of Government Procurement (“OGP”) provided support services to Tusla as part of the tender process, including in relation to the evaluation of tender responses for the various lots as outlined in the Request for Tenders (“RFT”). In light of the services provided to Tusla, we now make a request to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (“DPER”) under section 12 of the FOI Act, given that the OGP operates as an office of the DPER. Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we request that we be granted access to the following records relating to the said tender process for the provision of the Legal Services1, which we believe are held by the OGP/DPER, whether generally, or because they are under its control2, or because they are in the possession of the OGP/DPER as service-provider3 to Tusla4 (the “Request”), that is to say: 1. Any and all records comprising or reflecting the marking scheme, scoring matrix and/or guidelines for evaluators evaluating the Lot 18 proposals, including any records providing further detail on the meaning/interpretation of the evaluation criteria and how they should be evaluated. 2. Any and all records comprising of correspondence and communications between the preferred bidder, NAMED PARTY, and Tusla, and vice versa, including any Lot 18 submission or tender proposal sent by the preferred bidder to Tusla. 3. Any and all records comprising of NAMED PARTY tender submission/proposals to Tusla in respect of Lot 21 (Employment), which was also awarded to NAMED PARTY, including its submissions and proposals on the qualitative criteria, including contract management. 4. Any and all records reflecting any draft and final evaluations of the NAMED PARTY tender submission on Lot 21, including on the qualitative criteria, including contract management. 5. Any and all records disclosing the number of bidders and the ranking of our bid in the final evaluation vis-à-vis the preferred bid for Lot 18. 6. Any and all records comprising notes of individual evaluators and/or any adviser or consultant and/or of the evaluation team on the bids of NAMED PARTY and NAMED PARTY on Lot 18, taken at any time during the evaluation process. 7. Any and all records comprising the views, opinions, advice or reports of individual evaluators and/or any adviser or consultant and/or the evaluation team relating to the evaluation generally of the bids of NAMED PARTY and NAMED PARTY on Lot 18 and regarding any particular evaluation of any particular criterion or sub-criterion being considered. 8. Any and all records disclosing or reflecting any draft or preliminary evaluation or scoring of the bids of NAMED PARTY and NAMED PARTY on Lot 18, both of individual evaluators and of the evaluation team as a whole. 9. Any and all records comprising or reflecting communications between members of the evaluation team, and minutes or notes (or similar) of any evaluation team meetings regarding Lot 18. 10. Any and all records comprising any draft evaluation report or draft evaluation decisions or recommendations and any final evaluation report and decisions, of the evaluation team on Lot 18. 11. Any and all records comprising of or reflecting communications between the evaluation team, or any individual member(s) thereof and any other person(s) regarding the evaluation of and decisions on Lot 18 bids, and the final outcome of same. 12. Any and all records comprising of communications between the OGP and Tusla regarding the evaluation of, and decisions on, Lot 18 bids, and the final outcome of same. 13. Any and all records recording comments or observations on the evaluation of, and decisions on, Lot 18 bids, and the final outcome of same. 14. Any and all records comprising drafts and final versions of letters or other communications to the bidders (including NAMED PARTY), informing them of the outcome of the tender process regarding Lot 18.