'No guarantee costs relating to Arts Council's €6.6m botched IT project have bottomed out'

There is no guarantee that costs relating to the Arts Council's €6.6m botched IT project have "bottomed out", culture minister Patrick O'Donovan said.He told the Oireachtas arts committee that until the review of the council, led by Professor Niamh Brennan, has been completed, he "can't say it for definite"."We have to be quite honest about it. I do not know whether there is going to be other costs associated with it," Mr O'Donovan said.He was speaking after it emerged at the same committee on Tuesday that the legal spend to recoup funds from the four companies involved in the undelivered IT project now stands at €119,000  — almost double the figure previously provided."I think it would be a bit foolhardy of me to say, everything as it is now, that we have full transparency and all the facts," he said, responding to questioning from Senator Evanne Ní Chuilinn."If I say to you now, we're bottomed out, and something else comes up in the Brennan report, wouldn't I look like an awful eejit?"Fine Gael senator Garret Ahearn asserted that given the recent record of the council, it is "very hard to have confidence in them" but Mr O'Donovan said that while it is a phenomenal amount of money in question, the Arts Council would not be punished.Patrick O’Donovan told the Oireachtas arts committee he did not know 'whether there is going to be other costs associated with it'. Picture: Sasko Lazrov, "I am not going to go after the monies that go into the Arts Council, but what I am going to do is try working with the department officials and with the Arts Council through the chair to make sure that the systems, governance, oversight, management, and operation of it are transformed and fit-for-purpose," he said.Mr O'Donovan said that he had met with senior officials within the last fortnight and would be using the summer to focus on building morale with the council and the wider arts community.The Fine Gael minister also defended his decision not to renew former Arts Council director Maureen Kennelly's contract.When asked whether he had taken advice on the matter, Mr O'Donovan said that while he did run it by officials in the Department of Public Expenditure, Reform and Digitalisation, the decision was ultimately his own.The committee heard that his decision not to renew Ms Kennelly's contract, despite the board giving her its backing, was a "reasonable and proportionate position".With the review into the council not expected until the end of the year, it would not have been appropriate to allow Ms Kennelly to work out of contract.The options available to Mr O'Donovan were to reappoint Ms Kennelly for another five-year period, not reappoint her, or put in place a new contract for a designated period — in this case, nine months to bring it up to the anticipated delivery of the review.The offer of a nine-month contract was ultimately rejected by Ms Kennelly.Had Mr O'Donovan permitted her to continue in her role outside of contract, especially given the circumstances, he said the committee "would have something entirely different to say to me".When asked by Fianna Fáil TD Malcolm Byrne whether "heads should roll" at the department if the Brennan report finds failings on its end, Mr O'Donovan declined to say.Decisions on how to proceed cannot be decided until the report has been published, he said.

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