The chair of the Arts Council has admitted she “was not expecting” to be dealing with the €5.3 million write-off of a failed IT project when she first started her job last summer.
Maura McGrath has vowed to Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan that she will “rigorously” pursue any measures and reforms needed in the wake of the botched project, on which €6.7 million was spent without yielding a working system.
Ms McGrath’s note was included in the Arts Council’s annual report and accounts for 2024, which said the State agency’s “key risks” include “reputational risk” from the abandoned IT project. Another was the fact that the council’s existing ICT system, which the botched project was intended to replace, is not “fit for purpose”.
Ms McGrath was appointed to her role in June last year.
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In her statement in the annual report, Ms McGrath expressed her “deep concern at the non-delivery of the Arts Council’s Business Transformation Programme and the associated write-down of €5.3 million in the Arts Council’s 2023 financial accounts.”
“I 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,” she said.
A “governance review” into the project was set up, she said, but this was superseded by a review set up by Mr O’Donovan when he took over as Minister and became aware of the issue.
“I have assured him that whatever measures and reforms are required, they will be rigorously pursued by me,” she said.
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.
The report sets out the results of an “in-depth review of contracts with third party suppliers”, noting that “four non-compliant contracts previously not disclosed have been identified”. The report said the total value of the non-compliant spend on these four contracts in 2024 was €34,830, excluding VAT.
[ Why is it that IT projects do not come in on budget and on time?Opens in new window ]
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 “all relevant contracts were procured and awarded in accordance with EU and national procurement guidelines.”
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 “there was no non-compliant spend in 2024 on any of these contracts”.
