Legal files examined by the review team show the council was warned as early as June 2023 that it faced an uphill battle to recover costs paid to consultants due to “numerous deficiencies” on its side.
Niamh Brennan’s 270-page forensic report lays bare the management and governance problems at the embattled agency, as well as poor departmental oversight, which saw the project go astray over six years.
CDETB is the latest state-funded body after the Arts Council and RTÉ to release details of seven-figure problems with IT projects in the last year.
Risk registers and internal governance audits are rarely, if ever, released to the public, with no oversight of the key real-world risks facing public bodies until they become reality – and headline news.
A senior manager raised concerns in February about how sensitive personal details in applications forms for a 2025 bursary were handled internally. The agency says the issue was examined and resolved.
Internal records show a senior manager raised the alarm in February that the agency could not give an “assurance of confidentiality” based on how bursary applicant forms are stored internally and shared with assessors. The agency says that the GDPR concern was “successfully resolved”.
The recent revelations that the Arts Council and RTÉ both wrote down millions on large IT projects suggests that the lessons of the past with other failed State-led technology projects have still not been learnt.
The agency had to return the funding after its parent department refused a request to repurpose the remaining funds and support the arts community to cover increased costs during the inflationary crisis.
Kennelly will leave her position once Oireachtas committee scrutiny of the State agency's failed IT project concludes, the Arts Council board said in a statement this morning.
Director Maureen Kennelly’s oversight of the agency's failed IT project will likely be raised at the committee on Thursday. Senior department officials should also be quizzed about what they knew and when.
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