The Irish Software Association (ISA) has released guidelines to assist members in tendering for public sector contracts.

Despite Irish software companies such as Fineos, Curam and Propylon winning significant deals with overseas governments, relatively few public sector contracts have gone to local technology firms. The ISA has been lobbying on the issue for two years.

"The feedback we got from the public sector buyers it that they would love to buy more from indigenous companies but very often they are not completing the tender documentation correctly," said Michele Quinn, director of the ISA.

She said the guidelines were designed to make the tender process easier for member companies, and to demonstrate to the public sector that the software industry was taking the market seriously.

In the past software industry chiefs have called for the Government to set aside a percentage of contracts for small to medium-sized firms.

It is likely, however, that any such scheme would fall foul of European Union regulations on state subsidies, and the ISA has backed away from that position.

"Looking at current public sector buying patterns it is clear they are tending towards large consortia," says Ms Quinn.

"The primary contractors are so big that there is no way that an SME could win those deals on their own. We are calling on the Government to give extra weighting to consortia that include smaller firms."

Partnering with the larger IT services companies like HP, Bearing Point, IBM and Accenture could prove to be the most efficient way for local software firms to win a slice of the public sector spend.

"From our perspective we are committed and believe in the partnership route," says Declan Kearney, chief executive of software start-up Supplierforce.

"You could spend an awful lot of time trying to win small pieces of Government business. Smaller firms are precluded from a lot of the larger deals because our revenues are not high enough."

Ms Quinn hopes as a next step the ISA can interact with Government buyers to learn about their upcoming technology requirements and steer them in the direction of member companies that may be able to supply them.

"We would hope that indigenous companies would be able to meet them at a pre-commercial stage so that they could show what they have to offer," says Ms Quinn.

The first step in that process took place last March at an event where the international successes of ISA members were showcased so that buyers could appreciate there is no additional risk buying from local firms.

The ISA produced the guidelines in association with its Northern Ireland counterpart Momentum and with backing from Intertrade Ireland.