Irish Rail decision to write off €50m spent on failed IT project 'a national scandal'

Public Accounts Committee to seek meeting with company over shelving of project to deliver national train control centre

New system would have been used to dictate the flow of train traffic across Ireland, and was initially forecast for delivery in 2024 at a cost of just under €20m. File picture: Larry Cummins

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is to seek a meeting with Irish Rail at the “earliest possible” opportunity after it emerged the company wrote off €50m spent on an IT project which was not fit for purpose.

On Thursday morning, the committee discussed revelations in the Irish Times that Irish Rail had moved to discontinue a traffic management system for its train network planned since 2019, noting issues with the project had been public knowledge for some time.

The system, which had been developed by contractor Indra and was part of an overarching project to deliver a national train control centre at Heuston Station in Dublin, would have been used to dictate the flow of train traffic across Ireland, and was initially forecast for delivery in 2024 at a cost of just under €20m.

However, the project had been beset by delays and cost overruns, with recent minutes from Irish Rail board meetings detailing the project director’s major reservations regarding Indra’s ability to deliver it to completion.

Irish Rail’s plans to discontinue the project and write off the €50m in costs incurred to date are contained in the company’s as yet unpublished accounts for 2025.

PAC members agreed unanimously to call for the Department of Transport, National Transport Agency, and Irish Rail — which is not officially an entity under the remit of the PAC — to appear before it to discuss the issue, with Fianna Fail’s Paul McAuliffe calling for that meeting to take place at the “earliest possible” juncture and for the committee’s work programme to be set aside to achieve that aim.

“This is a worrying sum of money, I think there needs to be a thorough examination of what went wrong and the contractor, the Indra Group, have a lot of questions to answer alongside the four bodies in question,” he said.

PAC chair John Brady, meanwhile, described the matter as being “a national scandal” and said they “call into question its [Indra’s] ability to honour any contract”, saying the same company also holds the tender to deliver the NTA’s €35m next-generation ticketing system, currently slated to go live in 2028.

The committee also agreed to summon the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer to testify before it regarding a recent trend of State bodies discontinuing multimillion euro IT projects, with Social Democrats TD Aidan Farrelly saying “the State simply can’t manage them”.

Speaking in Dublin on Thursday, transport minister Darragh O'Brien said he had not been informed of the issue, and only found out about it through the media. Mr O'Brien said his department had taken the Irish Rail accounts in on Monday and they had not yet been passed to him.

"On foot of the reports that I read this morning, I'll be seeking more details, but I have to let NewEra [New Economy and Recovery Authority] and the department assess the annual report as they would normally.

"I'll be assessing that. I'm not making any comments with regard to speculation and write-downs until I read and assess the report, and that's the end of it."

Asked if the potential write-off made him concerned Indra could not deliver the contactless project, Mr O'Brien said it did not and the company was committed to the scheme.