Dr. Noel O'Connor:

An Cheim is in the final stages of being wound down and it might be timely to dwell on that process and give a bit of background and context. Accounts for the company have been approved by the board of An Cheim and by the auditors for the company, the Comptroller and Auditor General, earlier this month.

A full overview of the wind-down is contained in the statement of internal control in the accounts which will be posted by the end of this month on the Oireachtas website, and they relate to 31 August 2016. With the permission of the committee and in the spirit of absolute transparency, I will go through some of the summary of the statement of internal control. The company was established as a shared service support to the institutes of technology. The main focus of the company was to deliver on a range of technology related systems, management information systems, MIS, to support human resources, student records, library management and finance needs across the ITs, for approximately 100,000 students and 7,000 staff. It covered everything from registration, examinations and data management to all staff related systems. The company was incorporated in 2006 with its own board of directors and a chief executive officer, CEO, with an annual budget from the HEA. In 2013, as part of the consolidation of State agencies and also to provide an opportunity for greater synergies within the wider higher education sector, it was agreed to transfer the services of An Cheim to a new company, EduCampus Computer Services Limited, to be formed as a subsidiary of HEAnet and to wind down An Cheim. There was a logic to that and it was a wise decision.

The process of gaining all the necessary governance approvals to establish EduCampus with charitable status and to transfer An Cheim services and assets to it was undertaken through 2014 and 2015. A key objective of all parties was to ensure the continuity of service for core business applications across the ITs. Accordingly, the smooth transfer of activity, staff and resources from An Cheim to EduCampus was seen as being very important.

On 1 October 2015, the HEA transferred all funding of activities from An Cheim to EduCampus and all suppliers and clients of An Cheim were informed. Five of the eight An Cheim staff transferred to EduCampus and three returned to DIT. The CEO of An Cheim remained as CEO to direct the contract novation process and to wind down the company. An Cheim retains-----