Mr. Kevin Bakhurst:

The Deputy is right that of the payments and the impairments, one was to one of the companies involved which was later not involved in the project because it was not delivering it. Two of the significant impairments within the €6 million were for an expert consultant who was brought in at the beginning of this project to try to ensure it was properly carried out, as the Deputy can see from the papers I supplied. A significant amount of RTÉ's staff costs - approximately €750,000 - was written off as part of these impairments.

I should say that the impairments were made by the CFO at that point thinking that the whole project might fail. To be crystal clear, the main part of the project - the finance system - was delivered. As I understand it, the threshold for reversing impairments, even if the project can be put back on track, is very high. Arguably, some of the impairments could have been reversed because they were made for the finance system, which was delivered for RTÉ and is currently in use by RTÉ.