Mr. Feargal Ó Coigligh:

The chair of the Arts Council said she wants to be completely transparent and we want to be completely transparent. We want to be completely transparent in relation to our failings. That is why I commissioned the report and that is why we published the report with no redactions. There is nothing hidden in this. The failure of the Department to escalate what we knew is set out. We should have stepped in much earlier when it became clear that this project had run into serious difficulty. We absolutely accept those failings.

Regarding whether Ministers knew, unfortunately it was not escalated to the Secretary General - to me or to my predecessor - nor to the Minister who was in position at the time. Unfortunately, that knowledge only became known at that level in late June 2024.