Direct Award of Contract to Equilibrant Ltd for the carrying out of underwater scour inspections on 43 bridges and prepare reports

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Dublin City Council has invoked Article 32 Clause 3 (c) of Directive 2014/24/EU which states that the negotiated procedure without prior call for competition can be used in so far as is strictly necessary where, for reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority, the time limits for the open or restricted procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation cannot be complied with. The circumstances invoked to justify extreme urgency shall not in any event be attributable to the contracting authority. A contract has been directly awarded to Equilibrant Ltd, Consulting Engineers, Unit 45, North City Business Centre, 2 Duncairn Gardens, Belfast, BT15 2GG to carry out underwater scour inspections on 43 bridges and prepare reports in accordance with the specification prepared by AtkinsRéalis. On the 29th of January 2026 Dublin City Council received a circular from the TII (ref number 02/2026) advising that inspections of bridges and other road structures should be carried out following severe rainfall events. Scour is the leading cause of bridge failures in the last 100 years. Nearly all of Dublin City Council’s bridges span rivers & canals with the highest risk arising from collapse due to scour of foundations. Dublin City Council has many masonry arch bridges and bridges with piers that are located in the river beds on shallow pad foundations making the bridges vulnerable to scour damage. The main reason why masonry arch bridges collapse is due to scour of foundations as a result of increased water velocity and a high hydraulic head and involves the removal of material from the bed and banks of a channel and from around structure foundations by the action of water, leading to structural damage or failure. Due to climate change water levels are higher during floods and the frequency of flooding has got greater given rise to the risk of more scour to foundations.

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