Further complaint made to department over State stud book contract

A further complaint has been made to the Department of Agriculture criticising a recent process which awarded two State contracts to Horse Sport Ireland (HSI), the national governing body for equestrian sports.

The department earlier this year held an open competition for services that had previously been provided by HSI, a company that receives significant public funding. HSI won two of the three contracts, one to run stud books and another to run a national equine breeding service on behalf of the department.

However, the equestrian governing body lost out on a third contract to continue providing marketing services promoting the industry, which was awarded to the Irish Horse Board, a membership body for horse breeders. HSI lodged a legal case in the High Court in October seeking to overturn the department’s decision.

In recent weeks a further organisation has made a complaint about the procurement process to award the contract to run stud books to HSI. Stud books are a register of horses of a certain breed that make income from registration fees paid by horse owners and by supplying horse passports.

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[ State-funded equestrian body sues department over contract loss ]

A rival bidder who lost out on that contract has lodged a complaint about the process with the department, sources said.

It is understood that correspondence was sent to Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue, as well as department procurement officials, raising complaints about the competition. Internal records also show the decision to run a procurement process was a means to try to resolve a long-running alleged unlawful State aid complaint.

A rival company, Warmblood Studbook of Ireland, made a complaint to the European Commission in 2018, alleging the department’s funding to HSI amounted to illegal State aid and gave it an unfair advantage over other stud book operators. The commission has been investigating the claims in recent years, corresponding with the department and Warmblood Studbook.

In a letter dated November 19th last, the department submitted a plan to the commission’s directorate-general for competition to resolve the alleged unlawful State aid complaint. The department said it was planning to hold an open procurement process where organisations or companies could bid to run various services then provided by HSI.

In its response on December 1st last, officials from the commission said they felt “the procurement procedure is the adequate way to proceed” in the case. The rival studbook to HSI would be more likely to drop the alleged illegal State aid complaint if the process was “fair and open”, it said.

“The likelihood that the complainant will be prepared to withdraw his complaint may well depend on whether the procedures will give a proper chance to other market players that some or all of these services can be awarded to them,” the email said.

The department responded to say it was confident the process “will give a proper chance to other market players to compete fairly”.

The panel judging bids for the three contracts would include external individuals, with any conflicts of interests required to be declared, officials said. The correspondence between the commission and the department was released to The Irish Times following a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

It is understood that following the department advertising the contracts in an open procurement process earlier this year, the commission moved to close the case over State aid allegations.