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Irish Times

Arts Council takes legal action against contractors in €6.7m IT project

The Arts Council has commenced legal proceedings against two contractors involved in the failed project to develop an IT system for the organisation which cost nearly €6.7 million, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee will be told this week. The council is to also inform the committee on Thursday that it is in the pre-action stage in relation to two others. 'We are vigorously pursuing our cases to reduce the loss to the taxpayer,' the council is expected to say. There was fury in Government in February when it emerged that the Arts Council had had to scrap plans for a business transformation programme aiming to bring together five existing systems, including those dealing with grants. READ MORE Minister for Arts Patrick O'Donovan said there were a number of governance failures within the Arts Council. [ Arts Council demands high standards of cultural organisations. It failed to meet them itself Opens in new window ] Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers described the whole episode in a confidential memo to Cabinet as 'a massive waste of money'. The Public Accounts Committee is scheduled to hear from the Arts Council on the controversy on Thursday. Arts Council director Maureen Kennelly is expected to tell the committee that 'lack of internal expertise, poor performance by our contractors and also the impact of Covid-19, all contributed to the project failure'. 'We engaged external contractors to manage and deliver the work, as we did not have the internal resources to deliver this large-scale project. As we approached our expected delivery in September 2022, a year later than initially planned, multiple bugs were discovered. 'This substandard work meant the project could not move forward to completion. We ended contracts with both our testers and developers, changed the developers, project governance and management structure, and began work to rectify and complete the programme.' She is expected to say that 'following a review and attempted reworking, we were ultimately advised by new ICT consultants at the end of 2023, that the system was too flawed to rectify in a reasonable timeframe'. [ Documents prepared for Minister last summer revealed depth of botched Arts Council IT project Opens in new window ] 'System development then paused, and it stopped following a board decision, with the input of the Office of Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO), in June 2024. The effect of this decision was an overall loss of value of €5.3 million, which was reported to the Comptroller and Auditor General and included in our 2023 annual report and accounts. 'Throughout, we provided information and discussed with our colleagues in the Department (of Arts) how increasing costs were to be funded from within our capital grant.' The Arts Council has said €6.675 million was spent on the endeavour, of which €1.2 million was spent on work that can be 'reused'. The project was paused in late 2023 and discontinued from June 2024. Arts Council chairwoman Maura McGrath is expected to tell the committee the IT project 'was not and is not an optional extra'. 'It began out of necessity, and it is a necessity that remains to be addressed. However, the expectation that small State bodies set up for specialist purposes should be expected to carry the load on complex IT projects should be questioned.'