ISME PRESS RELEASE
Tender Advisory Service
ISME WELCOMES TENDER ADVISORY SERVICE
 New initiative a ‘step in the right direction’.
 Public Procurement Ombudsman still needed.
ISME, Wednesday 17th December 2014
ISME, the Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association, welcomed the launch of the new
Tender Advisory Service (TAS) by Minister Simon Harris yesterday (16 th of December) and
declared that the service, which is to be piloted from February 1 st, is a step in the right direction to
making public procurement more inclusive for SMEs.
Mark Fielding, ISME CEO, commented, “The introduction of this service should be of benefit to
SMEs who have issues about particular tenders and will allow them to raise concerns during the
tender process. It shows that the Minister has been listening to the experiences of ownermanagers, voiced by the Association and is taking some steps to rectify the long-standing problem
of SMEs being unfairly denied access to public procurement contracts.
“However, the real solution here would be to introduce a public procurement Ombudsman, who
could hold contracting authorities accountable for their procurement processes”, concluded
Fielding.
ENDS
For further information contact:
Mark Fielding
Chief Executive
Tel: 01 6622755
Mobile: 087 2519675
Note to Editors:
ISME is the only independent voice of Small & Medium business in Ireland, representing in excess of 9,000 members across all sectors. The
Association is owned and run by owner managers and is independent of big business, government and unions; the TRUE voice of t he Irish
SME. www.isme.ie
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