Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the witnesses. I have some questions for the Arts Council about the €5.2 million that was written off for an IT system deemed not to be fit for purpose and which was eventually discontinued. When this project was first planned six years ago, it was estimated it would cost roughly €3 million and take two and a half years to complete. Ms Kennelly said that coming up to the expected delivery date in September 2022, multiple bugs and substandard work – I believe that was the term she used – were discovered which meant the project could not move forward to completion and, ultimately, the Arts Council was advised by ICT consultants at the end of 2023 that the system was too flawed to rectify within a reasonable timeframe.

By the time the project was abandoned, the cost of the project had reached €6.7 million and the system was not in use. It was over double the cost and double the loss of public money. Can Ms Kennelly very briefly detail the procedures on how the substandard work she mentioned was flagged and addressed, or perhaps not addressed in this case, and how we have learned from that?