Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy for the question. The issue with regard to the director of the Arts Council arose by virtue of the fact that her term had come to an end. We are in the middle of an investigation, as I said a while ago. We already had an internal investigation that was concluded by the Department prior to me becoming Minister. It outlined the specifics around the now ill-fated ICT programme, which lost almost €7 million of taxpayers’ money. I had a decision to make around the continuance of the director’s contract. I made the decision based on the fact that Niamh Brennan’s report will probably be concluded around the back end of this year, hopefully. I made a decision that it is appropriate and proportionate, rather than having somebody working out of contract, which was going to be the situation if I did not address it. Given the issues with regard to governance, oversight and everything else that have been expanded on in this committee, I would have been in a far different series of questions had I allowed the former director to work without a contract. I took the decision, having consulted with the senior officials in my Department, that the contract should run up to and including the time that Niamh Brennan’s report would be concluded. We also ran that decision past the Department of public expenditure and reform, and it was said that was proportionate.