Mr. Frank Bermingham:

We had two different systems in the old VECs, in Tipperary South and and Tipperary North. They were based on the same platform but had a different structure. The database was amalgamated at the end of 2016. As we said in our opening statement, 2017 is the first full year of operating on the amalgamated database. We think that will add to the efficiency of producing the accounts.

Two of the other main ICT initiatives were also mentioned in the opening statements.We have introduced a system calledWay 2 Pay,which allows parents and students to pay contributions online. The benefit of this lies in taking a lot of cash out of the schools and reducing the amount of money in the school bank account, which was a big objective of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The other initiative is a system called DCS, which allows our part-time staff to claim their hours electronically. Those two systems have been successful, but there may be tinkering around the edges a little bit. The main system is the same one that we have had for a number of years. The big change in the last 12 months is that we have amalgamated the two databases, which will lead to some efficiencies.