Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

On 5 October this year, the Taoiseach assured the House that all IT projects within the Health Service Executive would be reviewed, including a contract with a company called iSoft. The project in question was mentioned again in the newspapers this weekend when it emerged that there had been no consultation between the Health Service Executive and either general practitioners or hospitals on the purchase of the software in question. It has also emerged that while the Department of Finance has sanctioned two packages — iEPR, the electronic patient records system, and Lorenzo, a patient management system — it has withheld sanction for the roll-out of the Lorenzo package.

The questions I want to ask the Taoiseach relate to the circumstances in which the iSoft contract was signed. My information is that the contract, worth €56 million, was signed on Saturday, 30 April 2005. This was done following the Department of Finance granting oral sanction for the signing of the contract to the acting director for IT in the Health Service Executive on 29 April. Is it true that this contract was only signed after high-level emergency meetings involving officials from the Department of the Taoiseach, the Office of the Attorney General and the Department of Health and Children? Can the Taoiseach explain why a contract of this significance was signed on a Saturday? Why was it based on oral sanction and what was the rush? I am quite sure the Taoiseach's excellent officials have prepared for him a long document on the value on these IT systems but I would prefer if he answered the specific questions on the circumstances in which the contract was signed.

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