§ MR. VINCENT KENNEDYTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the Local Government Board are seeking to compel all the Poor Law unions in Ireland to advertise for contracts for medicines and medical and surgical appliances on the 10th March, and in cases where the lowest tender be not accepted the Board now requires to be supplied with the reason for non-acceptance; and will he state if this action has his sanction, and on what Account it is taken.
880 (Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The Local Government Board have fixed the 10th March as the latest day on which tenders for medicine contracts can be lodged throughout Ireland, because, if a uniform date were not fixed, some firms might withhold their tenders until they, had ascertained the terms upon which rival firms were tendering in other unions, and this would obviously not be in the interests of the ratepayers. The principle embodied in the Board's regulations requiring guardians to state the reasons for non-acceptance of the lowest tender, when they take such a course, is the same as that which has received the sanction of Parliament in Section 18 of The Loca Government (Ireland) Act, 1902.†