Expenditure Reviews
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

In respect of the cost overrun on the project, the figures that I have available to me tell me that the cost of the project was approximately €3.8 million between 2015 and March 2022.
That figure emerged at the Committee of Public Accounts recently. The project included internal staffing costs, external providers, coding and software that were built up and engineering work that was carried out. Some of that was carried forward, but much of it was not. Approximately two thirds of it had to be abandoned but around one third of the work product was carried through into the new phase.
Some of the process improvements include things like better business requirements. Before one starts to write a line of code, one should know exactly what one wants it to do. That would be good practice in any software system, as would mapping the processes, the ins and outs, the workflows and the toll gates within it. That basic process mapping is important. Improvements to reporting structures will catch these things early or earlier than was the case previously. Project management capability is so important in this, as does ensuring that somebody has an eye on things and that there are reporting structures, toll gates, Gantt charts and all of the things we would expect. That is all ongoing and under way within the new system.
I have asked my officials for a detailed report because I am not satisfied with this. It happened before my watch, but, at the same time, it is not good enough. I have also asked for a detailed investigation.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29