Tenders sought for supply of polling booths

The Office of Public Works has advertised for companies to supply polling booths to be available for the forthcoming general election.

The furniture division of the OPW placed a notice in the EU Journal yesterday, which advertises contracts across 27 European states, requesting manufacturing companies to submit tenders to supply the booths throughout the country.

Tenders will be accepted until February 26th and the contract will be awarded to the lowest bidder. The number of booths required has not yet been decided.

The OPW wants to assemble a stock of the plywood polling booths and supply them as required to returning officers in each local electoral area.

"We are just getting ready because we know that the general election will take place in the coming months," an OPW spokesman said.

We will be replenishing our own stocks so that we have enough when the returning officers around the country request them."

He said they would not be tendering for a specific number of polling booths to be supplied because they did not yet know how many would be needed. Instead, once they have assessed the samples and chosen a bidder, they will indicate a range of figures within which they expect the numbers to fall.

The general election is expected to take place in May.