Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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216. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will identify any positions relating to IT which the Arts Council sought to establish or fill since 2018 and required clearance from a Government Department, as well as the length of time it took for such a request from the Arts Council to be granted clearance to do so by the relevant Department and the reason for that length of time; what the role was of his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8697/25]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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Since 2018, my Department has neither received a request for approval nor granted approval for any IT-related positions that the Arts Council has sought to establish or fill. As a general rule, my Department only considers senior-level positions in state agencies, specifically those at or above the level of Principal Officer Higher. For most positions at the Principal Officer General level or below, approval or ‘sanction’ is delegated to the relevant line departments to manage.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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217. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform what representation his Department had on the project steering group overseeing the Arts Council’s IT project which received sign-off from his Department; what knowledge or personal sign-off did the then-Minister and Secretary General at the time have when sign-off was conducted in 2019 and again when the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer in his Department conducted a review in early 2024; and what specific conditions were attached to the sign-off provided to the Arts Council IT project in 2019. [8744/25]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department, by virtue of the oversight role of the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO), was first approached by the Arts Council regarding their ICT project in 2019. This was standard procedure as set out in Circular 2/2016 (which has since been superseded by Circular 14/2021: Arrangements for Oversight of Digital and ICT-related Initiatives in the Civil and Public Service).

Approval for the proposal was conveyed in July 2019 subject to:

• compliance with the terms of Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Circular 02/16;
• sufficient funding being available in the allocation to the Arts Council;
• ownership and responsibility for the initiative being assigned to an internal senior official;
• appropriate project governance arrangements being established and maintained throughout the life of the project. The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht should have appropriate representation on the project governance structures;
• the Arts Council being satisfied that the proposed solution will meet audit and reporting requirements;
• agreement by key stakeholders on requirements and to cooperate as required during the design, development, implementation and operational phases of the project;
• the scope of the initiative being fully agreed prior to commencing;
• the Arts Council using the opportunity to identify any opportunities for the further streamlining of grants management;
• compliance with GDPR and Data Security considerations; and
• the initiative being progressed on a phased basis and, where possible, payments being linked to tested and working deliverables.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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218. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will publish in full every correspondence between the Arts Council and his Department in relation to the IT project and its problems since it received sign-off from his Department in 2019. [8747/25]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The interface and the communications between my department and the Arts Council falls into two areas i.e. the sanction process and some system issues analysis.

My Department, by virtue of the oversight role of the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO), was first approached by the Arts Council regarding their ICT project in 2019. This was standard procedure as set out in Circular 2/2016 (which has since been superseded by Circular 14/2021: Arrangements for Oversight of Digital and ICT-related Initiatives in the Civil and Public Service). This can involve a few interchanges of information. The result of this process was that my Department sanctioned the project with conditions in 2019.

The Arts Council then contacted the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer within my department in late 2023 to seek assistance with issues relating to their planned ICT system. This assistance was provided in early-2024. This included commissioning a technical review with the aim of informing the related deliberations of the Arts Council and its parent department.

The conditions included in the sanction for the proposed project and the substantive content of the technical review commissioned were included in the review by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media, which has already been published.

My Department became aware of the extent of the financial loss when the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport, and Media brought a Memorandum to Government on last 12th February 2025.