Ms Hilary Murphy-Fagan:

Departments and offices are coming at this from the vantage point on the basis of which they currently operate. We are sitting in the middle, looking at what is required for the future and not just today. We are trying to find and build a single standard solution that everybody can use. From an NSSO point of view, one of the weaknesses we identified was in our governance structures. We had a design advisory group and asked for its advice, but we did not have the final decision-making authority in place. That is now in place in the form of the senior user from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, where Government accounting sits. In order to get that design fully locked down and signed up to the chart of accounts, there were very intensive workshops during which the head of Government accounting, the NSSO, the finance officers from the Departments and an external chair spent three days locked in to look at the design and finally agreeing to the full single design.