Committee considered it unnecessary to submit contract for legal checks

The Comptroller and Auditor General castigated County Cork VEC as well as Glanmire Community College for taking on a big risk in an emphatically one-sided deal.

Prior to its launch in Glanmire, the Mobile Voyager Solutions’ (MVS) project was hailed as a groundbreaking system.

It would see students taught through interactive handheld devices which would reduce or eliminate the need for school books.

Its stated aim was to develop a product which would be utilised by secondary schools across Ireland. This would have been a lucrative product worth multiples of the initial investment.

However, despite obtaining the finance, signing the lease with AIB and agreeing to buy licences for MVS’s own software, the Glanmire school was contractually prohibited from making any profit.

The C&AG was told because it was a pilot project, Cork County VEC did not follow the standard tendering rules for buying goods and services.

The VEC had also considered it unnecessary for a copy of the contract to be submitted for legal checks.

“[The former Cork County VEC chief] acknowledged in hindsight and based on the eventual experience this would have been both important and necessary,” the C&AG’s report said.

Under the terms of the contract, released under the Freedom of Information Act, Glanmire Community College was obliged to deliver all the content required by MVS to develop its package as well as the funding.

It was also required to assist the staff of MVS with any questions they might have when it came to solving developers’ problems.

But for this, MVS was given all copyright benefits, intellectual property rights and the ability to sell on the licences.

Moreover, the Glanmire school was responsible for ensuring the rights of MVS were not breached by the distribution of unlicensed software.

The contract also included a clause that said MVS had no obligation to maintain the hardware bought for the project or the software developed.