Irish Republic threatened with legal action by EU
The EU has threatened The Irish Government with legal action in Europe’s highest court, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg over an alleged irregularity over the award of a multi million Euro interpreting contract to the US translation company Lionbridge Language Services.
The Irish Government made the award to Lionbridge after declaring it the winner in a multi tender bid for the provision of interpretation services to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, and the Reception and Integration Agency. Lionbridge has so far received almost 2 million Euros for provision of said services under the terms of the award.
The EU became involved, however, when one of the companies who tendered for the contract complained that the Irish Government had arbitrarily changed the rules of a qualifying competition whilst the tender process was already underway. As a result the EU has sent a letter to the Irish Justice Department asking them to explain why the rules of the tender process were applied differently than originally stated.
If the EU is not satisfied with the response then the next step is the European Court in Luxembourg…we will keep an avid eye out for the outcome.