2026-01-29

83. Deputy Eoghan Kenny asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the steps his Department is taking to investigate the significant overspend on the new SUSI IT system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6842/26]

I am taking this question on behalf of my colleague, Deputy Eoghan Kenny. Will the Minister inform the House of the steps his Department has taken to investigate the significant overspend on the new SUSI IT system, and will he make a statement on the matter to the House?

The City of Dublin Education and Training Board, ETB, made reference in its annual accounts to a legacy IT project for SUSI that started in 2015 – before either of us were in this House - but experienced a number of problems and delays. Ultimately, it did not result in the successful delivery of a completed system. Although unacceptable, IT projects, unfortunately, can encounter difficulties both in the public and private sectors. It is often the case, having worked in IT many years ago, that IT projects fail. Sometimes, they can be rebuilt or remodelled and other times they are thrown away. Sometimes they are consolidated into a new system. In any event, where projects are funded by public money, it is imperative, as the Deputy suggested, and I expect he shares this view, that the reasons for the issues are fully understood and specific actions are taken to prevent any recurrence. In the case of the SUSI project, a decision was taken in 2021 to terminate the contracts on the basis that it was not on track to deliver the expected benefits. Effectively, it was pulled up. It was realised in 2021 that it was not going to deliver the benefits expected. It was not on track or meeting the cost targets, etc., and the project was pulled and halted. I welcome that because sometimes, we see projects running overboard and over budget and no one shouts, “Stop”. In this case - it was the previous Minister not myself - credit is due that the rug was pulled and the decision was taken that enough was enough and that the project was out of order. Of course, that was done in line with the public spending code and legal advice following consultation by City of Dublin ETB with departmental officials. An independent report was then commissioned which looked at why the problems occurred and it made multiple recommendations for any future project. I might get into those recommendations in my supplementary reply. Notwithstanding the cancellation of this project, the need for a robust digital system for SUSI is as strong as ever. We need to deliver a resilient, efficient and modern service for over 100,000 students and their families who depend on the scheme. In this context, the City of Dublin ETB has a new IT project up and running since then, which is progressing. I will come back to that in a moment.

The Minister will be aware that this was highlighted by the Comptroller and Auditor General at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts recently. Obviously, concerns were raised at that meeting that, as the Minister correctly said, this project was initiated in 2015. At that stage, the cost was €2.2 million. The cost indicated to my colleague, Deputy Kenny, is that it has now risen to €6.4 million, and we are still at the pre-project phase. What lessons have been learned? The Minister mentioned the report he received. What lessons have been learned about the overrun of almost €4 million? I have no doubt, given the job the Minister is doing, that an extra €4 million in his budget would be very welcome for him as well as for the many students about whom I and all colleagues in this House ring the Minister. What has happened in the meantime in the Department? What is it doing about the €4 million overrun? What will the final cost be on this project which, as the Minister said, is badly needed?

I agree with the Deputy. Following the notice of termination in 2021, the City of Dublin ETB commissioned KPMG accountants to draft a report focusing on lessons learned arising from the project and what had gone wrong, which included looking at supplier issues, the delays and all the factors that combined to render the project unsuitable. A number of recommendations came out of that. I will not go into them all because there are almost a dozen of them but I can share them with the Deputy afterwards. I think they are on the public record already. They include things such as having a clear business vision, the importance of getting the requirements right at the outset, having a layered approach and having a front-loaded design stage front and centre. For example, the new project uses a cloud-based architecture which means it sits on the web as opposed to a single server. That is meant to have better distribution and fewer failover issues. There are a number of recommendations that range across procurement, business planning and IT robustness. There are ten recommendations and they are all being implemented. The new project is up and running and adhering to those recommendations.

I will ask the Minister again whether he can give the House some indication as to what this project will finally cost. I am sure he has that information by now. The initial cost was to be €2.2 million. A total of €6.4 million has been spent on it so far. Questions remain as to what steps the Department has taken to investigate this. Has anyone been held accountable for the fact that there has been a €4 million overspend on money that is so important? We all appreciate the importance of education in this State and the job the Minister does day in, day out for third level and higher level education. Has anyone been held accountable? What steps has the Minister put in place? What will the final cost of this project be? In 2015, it was to cost the Department €2.2 million but - I will say it once again - there is already a €4 million overspend on this project.

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.