Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the witnesses. I had an opportunity to engage with the Arts Council and the Department on this issue at the public accounts committee last week. The briefing document provided to us from the Arts Council today details extensively the timeline and the processes that led to the IT system write-off. It is clear in black and white that people in the Arts Council engaged with the Office of Government Procurement. The Department of public expenditure and reform signed off on the project. They engaged with the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and crucially they engaged with and informed the Department of the issues they were facing going right back to April 2021 and on multiple locations after that up to 2024. It was not until 2025 that the Minister decided to make an announcement on it.

My first questions are directed to Mr. Ó Coigligh. The timeline and chain of events are outlined in black and white. It is very telling that the Arts Council was pretty transparent on this at every opportunity. With that in mind, is it credible for Ministers to give statements that they had no idea there was such a huge problem and about the loss of millions of euro on this project?