A report by the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the Arts Council’s €5.3m IT project loss is“pretty damning” when it comes to “failures” that occurred in the Department of Culture, according to the committee’s chairman, Sinn Féin TD John Brady.
The PAC report comes after controversy over that project and a separate issue at the National Gallery where an X-ray scanner machine was bought at a cost of almost €125,000 but could not be used as there was no suitable room for the equipment.
The report recommends “that the Department [of Culture] develop and enforce stronger oversight mechanisms for funded bodies to ensure that issues such as failed IT projects or underutilised equipment are identified early and escalated appropriately”.
The PAC report on the 2023 accounts of what was then called the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, as well as the financial statements of the Arts Council and the National Gallery for the same year, was published on Tuesday.
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The department is now known as the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport.
Earlier this year, it emerged that an abandoned IT project at the Arts Council aimed at replacing existing systems led to a net loss of €5.3 million.
The PAC report says that “the lack of project management capacity, particularly for ICT projects within the Arts Council, was a significant factor in the failure of the ICT project”.
It also says: “The lack of a clear escalation and oversight process between the Arts Council and the Department, was also a significant factor in the failure of the ICT project.”
At the launch of the report PAC chairman, John Brady that the committee’s report is “pretty damning” in terms of “failures within the Department to escalate those issues that had been clearly identified, and it added significantly to the failure of that project.”
In a statement released after the publication of the PAC report the Arts Council said: “Over the past year, the Arts Council has taken a number of steps to address a range of issues.
“We welcome the publication of the report and are committed to responding proactively to its recommendations.”
A statement from the Department of Culture said the recommendations in the PAC report will be examined.
It said: “In relation to the issues referred to in the report the Department has taken a number of steps over the past year to address a range of governance and oversight issues”.
It said Minister Patrick O’Donovan “commissioned an external review of the governance and organisational culture in the Arts Council to Government in February this year”. This will be brought to Government when it is completed.
Meanwhile, the report highlights how €56.4 million of the then-Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts Gaeltacht, Sport and Media’s budget went unspent in 2023.
Of this €21.5 million was carried forward to its 2024 budget allocation; the remaining €34.9 million was surrendered to the Exchequer.
The report sets out how the Department’s secretary general Feargal Ó Coigligh “attributed this underspend to post-Covid construction delays and inflationary pressures, stating: ‘The inflationary environment between 2022 and 2024 had a significant impact on capital delivery ... particularly for larger projects’.
The report says: “Projects such as the RDS redevelopment and Connacht Rugby Stadium were cited as examples where progress stalled due to increased costs and limited contractor availability.”
Separately, it was revealed this year that the National Gallery bought, for almost €125,000 in 2017, an X-ray scanner for the purposes of examining art works in an unintrusive way. However, the machine lay idle in the subsequent years as there was no suitable room to house it. The scanner requires a lead-lined room due to the risk posed to humans from the radiation it produces.
The PAC report recommends that all Government departments and agencies conduct “rigorous” pre-purchase checks before acquiring specialist equipment and ensure that suitable facilities are in place for their use before committing resources to such projects.
A spokeswoman for the National Gallery told The Irish Times that as of this month “the X-ray cabinet is on site and we are currently in the testing and staff training phase”, adding “the X-ray function is expected to be operational before the end of the year”.
