Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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As we have gone through the full list, I have a few observations and questions.

Observing what happened when the Arts Council came before the Committee on Public Accounts and again today, it is a big issue that this came to light but in many ways Ms Kennelly is almost a sacrificial lamb for what is after happening here. I feel a great deal of concern regarding what has transpired here. Deputy Joanna Byrne, while I was away, said Ms Kennelly had been thrown under the bus. I have serious questions about governance in the Department. In fact, the Minister will be in front of us on 2 July. With the agreement of colleagues, we might put governance dating back a period of time as an issue to discuss when he is here. Obviously, the Minister has been in office a certain amount of time but there is governance going back a while.

I am a former IT business manager. I worked in a semi-State company in that capacity. I have some background in large-scale IT projects. The idea that every organisation of whatever scale will have the expertise across every area of defined IT required is not realistic.

Turning to the Secretary General, we have had issues. Granted, he distinguished that RTÉ is a separate semi-State company but we have had issues relating to the National Gallery and the Arts Council. We also had issues with another project, CMS, which happened prior to the reference date that the Minister applied in relation to the number of years going back in RTÉ as well. There seems to be an issue here within not only the Department, but across semi-State companies in respect of IT projects. This is a risk for the taxpayer in the State and I hope the Department of public expenditure is looking at this.

If we can identify four projects within a short space of time that fall under the aegis of the Department, then what in the name of God is going on in the rest of the public service in the context of IT projects? That is a serious concern. Has the Secretary General, in his time in a senior role in the service, been aware of or involved in any other IT projects where there were large-scale losses? He is smiling at me.