Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 173: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the aspects of the upgrading of the fingerprinting system used by the Garda Síochána that were put out to tender; the company which was awarded the tender; the estimated cost of the outsourced work will cost; when it will be completed; if he received legal advice on the tendering process; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4159/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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Following advertisement in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) and on the Government E-Tenders website, a contract was awarded on 17th November 2006 for the replacement of the existing Garda Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) together with extension of the system to cater for Immigration and Asylum requirements and its integration with existing Garda and Immigration Systems.

The competition was conducted under EU Restricted Tendering procedures and the successful bidder was a consortium led by Accenture and included Motorola and Daon. The contract value was €18.585m providing for the development cost of the system, required hardware and software and 3 years post implementation support. The project is jointly funded from the Garda Síochána and the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service budgets.

The system has been delivered over a number of phases. The first phase — which involved the replacement of the ageing existing AFIS system and the provision of new AFIS services to the Office of the Refugee Applications Commission (ORAC) — went live in October 2007. Subsequent phases of the project which included provision of AFIS services to the Garda National Immigration Bureau, preparation of the system for integration with PULSE and provision of access to the Garda International Liaison Office were completed by the end of 2008.

Legal advice throughout the process, including during contract negotiations, was provided as appropriate by the Chief State Solicitor's Office and the Office of the Attorney General. The project was also subjected to the peer review process operated by the Department of Finance.

I understand that the system is operating very satisfactorily with significant increases in matches since live operation.