Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 91 and 93 together.

I thank the Deputy. Following my appointment as Minister, issues were brought to my attention regarding a failed ICT project in the Arts Council and an unused X-ray machine in the National Gallery. Both projects were funded directly from my Department. Given the serious nature of the issues, I wanted assurance in relation to capital expenditure in other areas under the aegis of my Department. I therefore requested the Secretary General to write to all the State bodies under our aegis in the culture, sport and media sectors seeking information with regard to expenditure on capital projects since 2020 to provide assurance to me and, more importantly, the public, regarding the management of the capital expenditure. Bodies were asked to provide budgetary information on capital projects costing more than €500,000 since 2020. In addition, bodies were asked to identify if there were other capital projects below this level that should be brought to the Department’s attention for any other reason such as where there has been significant expenditure on projects that were abandoned or have materially failed to deliver on their objective.

I recently received a report from my officials in respect of this aspect. The responses received provide assurance that there are not widespread issues similar to those that arose at the Arts Council and the National Gallery. However, an issue was identified in the RTÉ response relating to expenditure on one ICT project. I was concerned about this and I met with the director general on 8 April to discuss further the background to the project, the reasons for the failure to deliver and assurance that this would not happen again.

I asked for written confirmation of the measures in place to protect against such a project failure in the future. The director general subsequently wrote to me last week and his response noted that an external review of this project had taken place in 2023 and the lessons from that report have been incorporated into all major capital projects. RTÉ has taken a number of steps over the past 18 months aimed at mitigating the risk of such an issue recurring. While it is disappointing this happened, it is important to note that it is in the context of a significant number of substantial projects delivered annually by the broadcaster.

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