Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister and I appreciate the update. When we look at other cities across Europe, we see they have introduced contactless payments much quicker. Milan did it in 24 months across multimode transport. One of the things I am concerned about is we have a contractor, Indra, who is to work with the NTA to deliver a very complex IT deployment across Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus, Irish Rail, and Luas. It is a very complex IT project. We see Indra already is €40 million over budget on the national train control centre project, as well as two years delayed. We do not have an amazing track record at delivering complex IT projects across the public service.

I appreciate that a lot of money is being invested in this and that the Minister will keep strong oversight of it, but it needs very strong oversight to make sure we do not have the same situation as with the train control centre, that is a €40 million overrun and two-year delay.

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