Ms Maureen Kennelly:

It is included in the figure of €6.675 million. We brought that person in via another framework. They were hopeful in spring 2023 and advised that the situation could be rescued, but unfortunately by November 2023 they told us a very different story which was that while the project could be redeemed it would take a further four years and cost a further €6.5 million. As the Deputy can imagine, that was deeply unpalatable to everybody in the council, the executive and the Department.

At that stage, we appealed directly to the OGP CIO, which conducted an external review. Under its auspices, it brought in a company in January 2024 to conduct a review to see if the code could be redeemed. As a result of its report and our own separate report, the council decided to stop the project. The project was paused at the end of 2023 and ultimately stopped entirely in June 2024.

We had an alternative system we wanted the Department to approve and for which we sought approval from the Department. That is in abeyance now until the Niamh Brennan group reports.