Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 1 July 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport

Arts Council Grant Management IT System: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 am

Mr. Feargal Ó Coigligh:

A number of things have changed. The circulars relating to ICT projects have changed. If we were establishing that project today, there would be an external peer review group. In the Department, since I came into office, we have put in place a tracker system for ICT projects and we have a lot of detailed recommendations from the report, which my colleague Sinéad O'Hara wrote, which should assist in the future. Separately, the Niamh Brennan report on the overall governance and culture of the Arts Council will be important. In terms of ICT projects, a lot has changed, including our resources. We now have a chief information officer at principal officer level, which we did not have when this project kicked off. We are much stronger and more in-depth than we were at the time.