{"id":151408,"date":"2025-11-21T05:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/151408\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T05:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:26:08","slug":"arts-council-chair-vows-to-rigorously-pursue-necessary-reforms-after-botched-it-project-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/151408\/","title":{"rendered":"Arts Council chair vows to \u2018rigorously\u2019 pursue necessary reforms after botched IT project \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The chair of the Arts Council<\/a> has admitted she \u201cwas not expecting\u201d to be dealing with the \u20ac5.3 million write-off of a failed IT project when she first started her job last summer. <\/p>\n

Maura McGrath has vowed to Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> that she will \u201crigorously\u201d pursue any measures and reforms needed in the wake of the botched project<\/a>, on which \u20ac6.7 million was spent without yielding a working system. <\/p>\n

Ms McGrath\u2019s note was included in the Arts Council\u2019s annual report and accounts for 2024, which said the State agency\u2019s \u201ckey risks\u201d include \u201creputational risk\u201d from the abandoned IT project. Another was the fact that the council\u2019s existing ICT system, which the botched project was intended to replace, is not \u201cfit for purpose\u201d. <\/p>\n

Ms McGrath was appointed to her role in June last year.<\/p>\n

In her statement in the annual report, Ms McGrath expressed her \u201cdeep concern at the non-delivery of the Arts Council\u2019s Business Transformation Programme and the associated write-down of \u20ac5.3 million in the Arts Council\u2019s 2023 financial accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not expecting to be dealing with this when I took up my position and it was a point of discussion at my first meeting as Chair with the former Minister in July 2024,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

A \u201cgovernance review\u201d into the project was set up, she said, but this was superseded by a review set up by Mr O\u2019Donovan<\/a> when he took over as Minister and became aware of the issue. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have assured him that whatever measures and reforms are required, they will be rigorously pursued by me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Former Arts Council director Maureen Kennelly: \u2018The Minister saw the opportunity for a scalp. I was an easy target\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The 2024 report was due to be published over the summer, but was delayed. It is understood this was due to scheduling issues involved in bringing it to Cabinet. <\/p>\n

The report sets out the results of an \u201cin-depth review of contracts with third party suppliers\u201d, noting that \u201cfour non-compliant contracts previously not disclosed have been identified\u201d. The report said the total value of the non-compliant spend on these four contracts in 2024 was \u20ac34,830, excluding VAT.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Why is it that IT projects do not come in on budget and on time?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The four contracts involved two media service providers, one proof reading service and a software provider. None of these were related to the IT project, and the council said that for that project \u201call relevant contracts were procured and awarded in accordance with EU and national procurement guidelines.\u201d <\/p>\n

But as the contracts progressed, the Arts Council modified them in a way that was later found in the aftermath of the IT project being scrapped as being non-compliant. The 2024 report said that \u201cthere was no non-compliant spend in 2024 on any of these contracts\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The chair of the Arts Council has admitted she \u201cwas not expecting\u201d to be dealing with the \u20ac5.3…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22810,72,61,60,6232],"class_list":{"0":"post-151408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-arts-council","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-patrick-o-donovan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}