In December 2018, the Department of Culture signed off on a €2.87 million, three-year Arts Council IT project to update its grant system. Six years later, the disastrous project was written off at a €5.3 million cost to the taxpayer. There were statements of condemnation from Government and contrition from the agency, media headlines for weeks, and numerous hearings before Oireachtas committees to try and get to the bottom of why problems with the project were not raised at an earlier stage. It subsequently transpired that the project was consistently on the council’s risk register since February 2021. At all…