Pressure on Cowen over €40m web fiasco

PRESSURE was put on Brian Cowen last night to explain how the Government wasted €40 million on a computer fiasco exposed by the Irish Examiner.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore pressed the Taoiseach as to why costs for the system, intended to act as a central web-stop for all Government services, could have been allowed to spiral so high and then just be abandoned.

“If the Government cannot establish a website describing the way in which public services are integrated, what confidence do we have it will be able to integrate the services themselves?