An auctioneering firm controlled by the Fianna Fáil chairman of Wexford County Council, Mr Lorcan Allen, has received substantial fees in recent years from the council for work which has never been put out to public tender.
This is in breach of Department of Finance guidelines which insist that there should always be open competition for such work.
Wexford County Council has confirmed that this contract has never been put out to public tender.
Mr Allen's firm, Allen and Kenny, received €44,132 last year and more than €112,000 since 1999 for services relating to the acquisition and disposal of land for the council's housing department.
In response to queries from The Irish Times, the council has confirmed that Allen and Kenny has been engaged by Wexford County Council on an ongoing basis for in excess of 20 years.
"The contract was not put out to public tender at any stage, but there are a number of other firms used by Wexford County Council on a regular basis also."
However the Department of Finance's Public Procurement Guidelines of 1994 state:
"It is a basic principle of Government procurement that a procedure based on competitive tendering should always be used, unless exceptional circumstances apply, in which case the approval of the GCC [Government Contracts Committee\] must always be obtained."
The Department confirmed last week that these guidelines applied to local authorities as well as to Government Departments and State bodies.
According to a spokeswoman for the council, this issue has never been raised with the council. The work - typically buying land for housing or selling local authority houses - was allocated among different firms "based on local knowledge of the auctioneers", and fees were negotiated and agreed for each particular job.
She did not believe the matter had ever been discussed with the Department or with the Government Contracts Committee.
Wexford County Council complies with EU regulations obliging it to hold competitions for very substantial contracts through advertising them in EU journals and inviting tenders.
However some of the arrangements it has with service providers for smaller amounts of work - including auctioneering services - predate the Department's 1994 guidelines and the informal method of allocating this work has not changed.
Mr Allen, a Dáil deputy from 1961 to 1982, said yesterday that he had never heard any suggestion that the Department of Finance had guidelines which suggested this work go out to tender. Wexford County Council used "a half dozen firms" for such work, he said, and there was no question of his firm getting what he called "VIP treatment".
A Fianna Fáil member of Gorey Town Commissioners, Mr Malcolm Byrne, yesterday called on the council to put this work out to public tender.
"When you are looking at that amount of money it should be put out to public tender. If Lorcan Allen wins these contracts after public tender, then well and good," he said.
Allen and Kenny handled less that a quarter of the housing department's requirements last year, according to the council, and handled none of the work required by the water services or roads departments.
According to the council, Allen and Kenny Auctioneers was paid €20,357 in 1999, €12,616.90 in 2000, €35,654 in 2001 and €44,132.90 in 2002. This makes a total of €112,761.79 in these four years.
No payments have yet been made in 2003.