In its February 2016 judgment in RPS Consulting Engineers Limited v. Kildare County Council, the High Court of Ireland ordered a municipality to provide detailed evaluation reasons in an engineering consulting tender. The court rejected the standardform “high-medium-low” scoring statement letters provided by the municipality to all bidders as non-transparent “platitudinous responses”. The court ruled that a public body is required to explain its scoring, particularly where a contract is not awarded to the low bid. It also found that losing bidders are entitled to comparative information relative to the winning bid to help them assert their bid protest rights and prepare future bids.
