Licensing, staffing models and what a guarding contract really costs
Manned guarding is a regulated activity in most jurisdictions, and the licence is the first gate. Individual officers hold a licence for the activity they perform -- static guarding, door supervision, cash in transit, close protection -- and the company holds an approval of its own, with screening of employment history over a stated number of years before an officer is deployed. Buyers verify the licences rather than the assertion, and a bid based on a workforce that does not yet hold them is a delivery risk the evaluation is designed to find.
The price is a wage plus an on-cost, and the room for manoeuvre is narrow. Applicable wage floors, holiday and sickness cover, training time, and the relief factor needed to keep a post covered around the clock are close to fixed, so an unusually low bid is usually a signal about one of them. Where a contract is transferring from an incumbent, employment protection rules commonly move the existing officers across on existing terms, which fixes most of the cost before the bidder starts and makes the transferring staff information supplied at tender the most important document in the pack.
Specifications increasingly describe outcomes and the technology that supports them rather than hours on a gate. Assignment instructions, incident reporting, patrol verification, control room monitoring, response times to alarms and integration with electronic access and surveillance systems are all defined and measured. For sites with public access or vulnerable users, conflict management and safeguarding training are specified, and the buyer usually retains the right to require removal of an individual officer without cause, which the bidder has to be able to absorb.
This section describes how this category is bought generally, across the public buyers that publish it. The figures elsewhere on this page are measured for this market alone.
Who buys security services in Ireland?
GlobalGov holds 115 security services records from 72 distinct buying organisations in Ireland. The most frequent publishers are Health Service Executive (HSE) (6 records); Central Bank of Ireland (4 records); Department of Social Protection (4 records); Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin (3 records); Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine (3 records); Fáilte Ireland-National Tourism Development Authority (3 records). Between them the 6 largest account for 20% of everything published, so buying here is spread across many separate authorities.
| Buying organisation | Records | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Health Service Executive (HSE) | 6 | 5.2% |
| Central Bank of Ireland | 4 | 3.5% |
| Department of Social Protection | 4 | 3.5% |
| Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin | 3 | 2.6% |
| Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine | 3 | 2.6% |
| Fáilte Ireland-National Tourism Development Authority | 3 | 2.6% |
What are security services contracts worth in Ireland?
97 of the 115 records publish a contract value. The median is $864,000 and the largest single published value is $453.6M. By size, 8 under $100k, 44 between $100k and $1M, 31 between $1M and $10M, 14 above $10M. The remaining 18 publish no value at all, so every figure here describes the priced subset only, and values are as stated by the buyer rather than as finally awarded.
| Contract size | Records | Share of priced |
|---|---|---|
| under $100k | 8 | 8.2% |
| between $100k and $1M | 44 | 45% |
| between $1M and $10M | 31 | 32% |
| above $10M | 14 | 14% |
How long do bidders get to respond to security services tenders in Ireland?
Across the 43 Ireland security services notices that publish both a publication date and a closing date, the median response window is 35 days. A quarter of them allowed 33 days or fewer and a quarter stayed open for more than 41. Not one of them closed within a fortnight of being published, so the window on this market is consistently workable.
How often are security services tenders published in Ireland?
Ireland published 9 notices in this category in the last twelve months. Over the last three years there were 58, spread across 47 separate months of activity since 31 May 2021. May is historically the busiest month. No new notice has been published in this category since 26 May 2026, 128 days ago, so treat the figures above as a record of the market rather than as this week's pipeline.
How does Ireland compare with other security services markets?
Among the 29 countries where GlobalGov holds a comparable security services market, Ireland ranks 12th by number of records. The largest is Netherlands (1,431 records against 115 here). Within Ireland itself, security services is the 37th largest of the 63 procurement categories tracked here.
Where do the Ireland security services records on this page come from?
These 115 records are collected from 1 official source: TED (115). GlobalGov is an independent aggregator and is not affiliated with any of them; each record links back to the notice on its issuing portal. The set is rebuilt nightly, and the counts on this page were taken on 2026-10-01.
Most recent Security Services tenders in Ireland
None of these are open for bids now — they are the most recent records GlobalGov holds for this market, kept here so the shape of a typical security services notice in Ireland is visible. Set an alert to be told when the next one opens.
Ireland - Placement services of personnel - Provision of Human Resources Agency Services to Kerry Education and Training Board
Other procurement categories in Ireland
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Security Services procurement in other markets
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