South Dublin County Council awards animal shelter dog pound contract

South Dublin County Council has awarded a contract to Dublin Animal Welfare Pound Partnership for the provision of dog pound and dog related services.

SDCC, along with the three other Dublin local authorities, previously contracted Ashton Dog Pound in Ashtown to take in stray dogs found the county and undertake dog warden services.

However, Ashton Dog Pound is currently under investigation by the Gardaí for the mist-treatment of dogs under its care.

Fianna Fail councillor Deirdre Heney said that when she visited the pound last summer, she said that “what I saw there was quite shocking.”

A man in relation to the investigation was arrested in January of this year.

SDCC had previously awarded the contract to Midland Animal Care Ltd, an Offaly-based animal shelter operator, but it has since withdrawn from the tender process.

Dublin Animal Welfare Pound Partnership and Midland Animal Care Ltd currently have no website or social media presence.

At this month’s county council meeting, three councillors, Derren Ó Brádaigh (SF), Teresa Costello (FF) and Ronan McMahon (Ind) asked the council for an update on the tender process and how the operator was selected.

In response, the council said: “South Dublin County Council published an invitation to tender on the January 4 for the provision of dog pound and related services.

“Five tenders were received by the closing date for receipt of tenders, February 10, 2021.

“The evaluation of the tenders received has been completed and the successful tenderer is Midland Animal Care Ltd.”

“The council is proceeding with the process of awarding the contract to the successful tenderer with a view to commencing the contract at the earliest possible date.

“As set out in the invitation to tender, the initial contract will be for a period of one year with an option to extend for one year up to a maximum of four years subject to satisfactory performance.”

This response was issued prior Midland Animal Care Ltd withdrawing its proposal.

The council also set out five criteria that it used to judge the applicant’s’ proposals.

It judged the quality and technical merit of the service, method statement for the delivery of the service, quality of the arrangements for the management of the client relationship, quality of facilities proposed addressing the specification requirements, and ultimate cost to South Dublin County Council over the life of the contract.

Overall, each proposal was scored points with a maximum score of 10,000 points, with each premises visited and examined by council officials.

South Dublin County Council failed to respond for a comment on the location of the shelter by the time of publication.