Catherine Martin
Catherine Martin was minister for tourism, culture, arts, Gaeltacht, sport and media from 2020 until January 2025. During her time as head of the department, Ms Martin was seen as having more of an affinity for arts and culture, and the Arts Council’s budget almost doubled during that time.
In a short statement issued to The Irish Times on Friday, she seemed to suggest that the full extent of the losses from the failed IT project in the Arts Council was disclosed only last summer.
However, the Arts Council has maintained the department was kept fully aware of the progress of the project from 2021 onwards.
In a statement on Friday night, the department accepted there may have been shortfalls in reporting mechanisms. It said while there were flows of information from the Arts Council, no progress report was sent to either the minister or secretary general before the summer of 2024, either directly from the Arts Council or from within the department.
“In terms of the department, the examination found there was no formal process ... to escalate warnings to senior management or the minister in respect of IT projects in bodies under the remit of the department,” the statement said.
It is not known if the former Green Party TD will attend a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on the matter. If she does, she will be asked when she became aware of problems, and to what extent was she briefed about the ongoing difficulties.
Patrick O’Donovan
Fine Gael TD Patrick O’Donovan succeeds Ms Martin and came into office last month, some time after the IT project was abandoned.
Following this week’s Cabinet discussion of the matter, he issued a statement and said he was furious at the waste of public money. He has approved an external review of governance within the Arts Council but other than that he has played little role in the matter.
Kevin Rafter
Kevin Rafter is professor of political communications at DCU and a former high-profile journalist. He was chair of the Arts Council from 2019 until the end of 2023. He chaired the council at a time of significant growth, with its budget rising by 80 per cent from €75 million in 2109 to €134 million in 2024. Much of his early work as chair was responding to the significant challenges posed to the arts sector by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The project to replace the council’s out-of-date IT system had already been approved when he became chair, but it was one of the major issues facing the board during his tenure.
The council has maintained that it had kept the department informed and updated at all times from 2021.
If asked to attend the PAC, it expected Mr Rafter will be asked in detail about the deliberations of the board, about his communications with the department and with Ms Martin, and why the board took a critical decision to continue with the project when fundamental difficulties were identified at a particular juncture, a decision that led to further substantial expenditure on an IT system that never got off the ground.
Maureen Kennelly
Maureen Kennelly arrived into the Arts Council at about the same time as the chair Mr Rafter. A former director of Poetry Ireland, she had an impressive CV as an arts administrator including stints as director of Kilkenny Arts Festival, general manager of Fishamble Theatre Company and artistic director of Mermaid Arts Centre.
Since she became director, the council has become a much larger organisation, responsible for a much wider range of artistic projects, grants and funding.
[ Arts Council may need €1.5m more to replace grants system after €5.3m failureOpens in new window ]
As she is the senior executive in the council, it is expected the PAC will be keen to establish the rationale behind critical decisions that were made, what efforts were taken to control costs and why it decided to terminate the project. Committee members will also want to know the extent of communications between Ms Kennelly and her senior counterparts in the department.
Maura McGrath
The businesswoman and human resources consultant succeeded Mr Rafter as chair of the council in early 2024, by which time the IT project had been effectively mothballed at a cost of €6.7 million. As such, her involvement with the project was minimal, other than dealing with the ongoing fallout.
Feargal Ó Coigligh
The secretary general of the department, Mr Ó Coigligh was appointed in 2024. Like Ms McGrath his involvement relates only to the post-hoc response. However, as accounting officer he will be asked by the PAC about when the department first became aware of problems besetting the IT project, if it ever intervened and if his predecessor Katherine Licken was made aware at any stage.
