Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)

We discussed this in detail in private session. The project in question is one of a number of projects Deputy Connolly has raised. There seems to be a trend whereby projects do not match at tender what ultimately is needed at production. That leads to a significant cost overrun, sometimes of 50% or 100%, of the initial budget that was put aside. That type of overrun will always have an impact somewhere else in terms of service provision. This particular project is an example of that. We have had other correspondence identifying similar IT projects that have overrun, been delayed or are still not provided. As the Chair said, we need to get an overall perspective on this issue. There is really strong evidence suggesting a trend that raises questions concerning internal competency to write briefs for significant IT projects.