The deadline for submission of tenders to print ballot papers for the general election – the date of which has yet to be revealed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny – closed on Monday.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin, on behalf of Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly, had invited tenders to supply and print ballot papers and posters for Dáil elections and byelections.

Details were published on the e-Tenders procurement website last month and applications closed at noon. The contracts will be worth an estimated €400,000, excluding VAT, over four years.

Earlier this month, the Government agreed to Mr Kelly’s proposals to change to the format of the ballot paper previously used at Dáil elections.

These changes will be introduced by way of amendment to the Electoral (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2015 published on October 2nd, 2015.

Debate on the Bill will resume in the Dáil this Wednesday and is expected to continue until November.

Mr Kelly had committed to a review of the ballot paper last April after concerns were raised about voters misplacing their marks on the ballot paper.

The confusion had arisen because a space on the left of the paper for a party emblem was required to be left blank in the case of non-party candidates. Some voters had expressed their voting preferences incorrectly in the blank space on the left, instead of in the correct place on the right of the paper.

The Department of the Environment consulted with the National Adult Literacy Association and with the National Council for the Blind in the review of the ballot paper.

Italics and parentheses will be removed from the front of the ballot paper and the wording on the back and the counterfoil will be in both Irish and English.