COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 6 Oct 2005

2004 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts.

Vote 19 — Office of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

Vote 21 — Prisons.

Chapter 6.1 Prison Service — Human Resource Management System.

Mr. S. Aylward (Secretary General, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform) called and examined.

Chairman

Witnesses should be aware that they do not enjoy absolute privilege before the committee. The attention of members and witnesses is drawn to the fact that as from 2 August 1998, section 10 of the Committees of the Houses of the Oireachtas (Compellability, Privileges and Immunities of Witnesses) Act grants certain rights to persons identified in the course of committee proceedings. These rights include the right to give evidence, the right to produce or send documents to the committee, the right to appear before the committee either in person or through a representative, the right to make a written and oral submission, the right to request the committee to direct the attendance of witnesses and the production of documents and the right to cross-examine witnesses. For the most part these rights may be exercised only with the consent of the committee. Persons invited before the committee are made aware of these rights and any persons identified in the course of proceedings who are not present may have to be made aware of these rights and provided with the transcript of the relevant part of the committee's proceedings if the committee considers it appropriate in the interests of justice.

Notwithstanding this provision in the legislation, I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Members are also reminded of the provisions within Standing Order 156 that the committee shall also refrain from inquiring into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government or a Minister of the Government and the merits of the objectives of such policies.

I welcome Mr. Aylward. Perhaps he would introduce his officials.

Mr. Sean Aylward

I am accompanied by Mr. Jimmy Martin, assistant secretary at the Department. Mr. Brian Purcell, Mr. John Conlan, Ms White and Mr. Seamus Clifford are from Killarney. Mr. David Costello and Mr. Noel Dowling are from the immigration side of the Department. I brought some people from there as back-up because it was not completely clear to me what issues would be covered today.

Chairman

That is a separate chapter. We do not have it filed today.

Mr. Aylward

That is fine.

Chairman

Perhaps Mr. Aylward's colleagues would like to take the rest of the morning off.

Mr. Aylward

We will find work for them to do.

Chairman

I did my best. Would the representatives from the Department of Finance introduce themselves?

Mr. Fred Foster

I am a principal officer in the public expenditure division. I am accompanied by Mr. Jim O'Farrell, principal officer, and Mr. Dave Ring from CMOD.

Chairman

Perhaps Mr. John Purcell would introduce Votes 19 and 21 and Chapter 6:1, or is Mr. Aylward going to take the two together?

Chapter 6.1 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads:

6.1 Human Resource Management System

Background

Delivering Better Government, published in May 1996, stated that the modernisation agenda in the Civil Service needed to be supported by changes in Human Resource (HR) Management policy and practices.

The actions required to give effect to Delivering Better Government called for the roll-out of modern, IT based Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) in individual Departments/Offices across the Civil Service to provide a platform for improved service and strategic re-orientation of the HR function.

The benefits of the new systems were expected to include

·enhanced management information and reporting, with a greater emphasis on strategic HR issues

·greater efficiency in administration and improved service to staff

·an integrated system for both personnel administration and training/development

·interfaces to other systems such as payroll.

It was also expected that improved HRMS would open up the possibility of devolving certain aspects of HR to line managers.

The Department of Finance's Centre for Management and Organisation Development (CMOD) took the lead in centrally acquiring a well known Human Resource software package as the basis for strategic human resource management in the Civil Service and as a replacement for the existing Personnel Administration System (PAS) which had been in use for many years in most Departments/Offices. The chosen package was customised for use in Government Departments and Offices and piloted in the Department of Social and Family Affairs and Office of the Revenue Commissioners.

CMOD's main responsibilities were to maintain a standard template for the new system, coordinate maintenance of the common interfaces, respond to functional and technical support queries and issues assecond level support, manage and control HRMS customisations and coordinate upgrades of the software.

Departments and Offices would be responsible for implementing, integrating, training, funding,maintaining and operating the new HR systems.

Coordinated Approach to Implementation

CMOD provided a standard Request for Tender (RFT) document to assist Departments and Offices in procuring an implementation partner to bring the new system into operation. The RFT, which included a standard Specification of Requirements, allowed each Department/Office the flexibility to define its own particular needs and to deal with issues arising from systems already in operation in Departments/Offices.

Justice Group Implementation

The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform decided, with the objective of achieving significant economies of scale, to seek a single supplier to implement the system for its five main entities, the Department itself, the Prison Service, the Courts Service, the Land Registry and Registry of Deeds and the Legal Aid Board.

Following a tender competition in late 2002, the Department engaged a leading consultancy firm as its implementing partner for the project.

HRMS in the Irish Prison Service

An audit review by my staff of implementation of the system in the Justice Group noted that notwithstanding significant payments to the consultants and the expenditure of considerable time and effort by staff, use of the new system was discontinued in the Prison Service in December 2004.

The Prison Service was the only one of the five organisations in the Justice Group not to be a user of the existing PAS system widely in use across the Civil Service before commencement of this project. The Prison Service used a personnel system based on a particular database package. Implementation of the new HRMS system commenced on a phased basis in the Prison Service in September 2003. By February 2004 Governors in prisons where the system had not been implemented decided to continue to use the old system rather than migrate to HRMS because of concerns raised that the new system did not meet the Prison Service business needs, required significant additional administration time to operate, and did not provide accurate management information. An internal Prison Service committee was set up to review the position and in September 2004 the Prison Service notified CMOD of its intention to withdraw from the HRMS. Formal notice of non-renewal of licences was sent to CMOD in December 2004.

The Prison Service ceased to use the new system on 1 December 2004, subsequently re-instating the old system, which required re-input of personnel records that had been migrated to HRMS.

Audit Concern

As the decision of the Prison Service to pull out of the HRMS project gave rise to significant nugatory expenditure and may have been indicative of either a failure by the project management to properly evaluate the needs of the Prison Service, or alternatively a lack of commitment in making the chosen system work, I sought the Accounting Officer's views.

Accounting Officer’s Response

General

The Accounting Officer in his response stated that the Prison Service is a branch of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and operates from sixteen prisons and five other locations, including its headquarters in Clondalkin. At the time of the introduction of the HRMS in September 2003 there were eighteen prisons, and the system was implemented in all of them at that time.

The great majority (approximately 3,200 out of 3,350) of staff in the Prison Service belong to grades unique to the Prisons, resulting in a set of business needs that are particular to the Prison Service, which include dealing with staff that work irregular hours, injuries on duty, compensation for injuries, the Prison Service generation of sick leave reports which take into account the different work patterns of Prison Officers,letters for staff and the withdrawal of paid sick leave. This specialised set of requirements has made the Prison Service's experience with HRMS different from that in other agencies where the system has been implemented. In effect, the Prison Service is a seven day-24 hour a day organisation and its HR activities are geared on a "round-the clock" basis. The failure of the system customised to meet these particular requirements led to the Prison Service's decision to discontinue its use.

Given the unique needs of the Prison Service, work is underway to consider how best to meet current and future needs, with external facilitation. A decision will then be taken as to whether any off-the-shelf package would be suitable or whether the Prison Service requirements demand a custom built programme.

Response to Specific Queries

· How much did implementation in the Justice Group cost?

The Accounting Officer informed me that the total cost of implementing HRMS in the Department's Head Office, the Land Registry, the Legal Aid Board, the Courts Service and the Prison Service was €1.06 million. Table 20 gives an apportionment of these costs. The amount attributable to the aborted HRMS in the Prison Service was €450,545.

Table 20

	Justice Headquarters	Prison Service	Courts Service	Land Registry and Registry of Deeds	Legal Aid Board	Total
	€	€	€	€	€	€
Pre Implementation	197,091	248,420	78,075	49,684	29,101
Implementation/Consultancy	118,034	174,308	56,775	38,855	21,419
Implementation Costs	12,311	27,817	5,943	3,821	2,123
Total	327,436	450,545	140,793	92,360	52,643	1,063,777

He also indicated that the cost of re-keying information in the prisons was unlikely to exceed €5,000. The internal staff costs associated with implementing the system in the Group are approximately €26,000.

· Why were the specific needs of the Prison Service not recognized and factored into the implementation prior to the issue of the RFT?

In reply the Accounting Officer pointed out that while there was an awareness of the special business needs that might apply in the prisons it was decided to go for one singular implementation. It was likely that the Group would get economies of scale from going this route in terms of a cheaper overall implementation contract, and this proved to be the case. Secondly it gave the Group more clout in the market as a bigger and more lucrative implementation client and therefore more likely to attract ‘serious' players. Thirdly there were considerable additional synergies on the technical level, in particular the idea of using a common server as opposed to setting up a separate one in each organisation.

The RFT sought an implementation partner for the basic HRMS available to the Civil Service. It was felt that individual agencies could then build their own modifications to fill any gaps. As it turned out, this approach did not work out for the Prison Service. The extra functionality required was extensive, there was little scope for upgrading/modifying the system itself, and any option taken would have required a lot of time.

Some of the difficulties with the RFT, from a Prisons perspective, were due to changeover of staff as the Prison Service moved to Clondalkin and the loss of corporate knowledge that accompanied it. New work practices were adopted to deal with these difficulties, but these did not adequately meet the needs of prison users. HRMS managed to provide much of the functionality of the existing software system, but was noticeably weaker than the old system in some of the key areas used by prisons. A HR system in a more ‘finished' form would have been more well received by prison users, as from their perspective HRMS was a significant step backwards. This resulted in a low level of user acceptance across prisons.

He indicated that a standard set of reports when configured for Prison Service use proved cumbersome and untrustworthy. As a result, Clerks in prisons were often unable to fulfil their reporting requirements to their Governors.

Since the Justice implementation, a further set of 30 Civil Service reports were developed by CMOD, but only a small proportion of them provided any information. Furthermore, they did not work at all unless exported into a report writing package that could not be used in the Prison Service for security reasons. The Accounting Officer added that he understood that Prison Service was not unique in having difficulties with the system's capacity to provide satisfactory reports.

A further difficulty arose in relation to the Prison Service's requirement to provide sick leave advice letters to staff (as a result of a High Court ruling) and extra cost was incurred to build in letter production functionality. The Prison Service was presented with two options at the time, one was for five days' effort by the consultant, and the other for twenty days' effort, both at the daily rate of €990. The Prison Service opted for the cheaper of the two options.

· Was adequate training provided?

He informed me that Key Functional Users (KFUs) in the Prison Service were used to train the clerks of the prisons. Each clerk was given a half days training to learn how to input sick leave, print letters and see sick leave reports, using training manuals designed by the KFUs and the consultants. The clerks made numerous complaints about the system itself at this stage, but the KFUs covered all of the training areas with each of the clerks, as well as providing a considerable amount of "hand-holding" after the system went live.

The consultants did not include report writing training during the main implementation in any agency to the knowledge of the Accounting Officer. The rationale offered by the consultants at the time was that they felt it was better for agencies to go live with the system and get a feel for use of the system first before coming back for training in report writing. The consultants also felt that report writing training was not relevant to all end users but only to the KFUs.

· What acceptance tests were performed to ensure delivery of a fully operational system?

The five agencies of the Justice Group fully loaded current personal and sick leave information onto a test version of the HRMS database in order to test it. In the Prison Service tests, post go-live, the differences between HRMS and the old system were limited and for the most part due to different features of the new system. However there were difficulties with some documentation provided by the supplier.

The Accounting Officer pointed out that problems emerged with system response times depending on local infrastructural conditions in the 18 different Prison Service sites. As the HRMS is based on a web browser, there is no way around this except ensuring fast connection speeds at all stages. The Prison Service has since spent in the region of €150,000 upgrading infrastructure in the larger prisons. This requirement would continue to exist in the context of a new shared services solution provided by CMOD.

· Was the assistance and guidance given by CMOD appropriate for the implementation of HRMS in the Justice Group as a whole?

The Accounting Officer stated that at the time of the Justice Group project, it was CMOD's position that each Department look after their own individual implementation. However, CMOD had a representative on the Justice Group Project Board and gave input as appropriate during the course of implementing HRMS.

As many of the Prison Service's difficulties arose post-implementation there is no particular evidence to suggest that CMOD was aware of the problem until after the go-live date.

When contacted about Prison Service's problems with HRMS, CMOD was of the view that the Prison Service was just one organisation in 17, and was not given any particular priority, despite the difficulties being experienced, though it could be argued that the Prison Service represented 10% of the staff in the Civil Service on HRMS.

In June 2004, after the prisons had discontinued use of HRMS, CMOD offered to assist in testing reports, but did not in fact do so, due to other work demands.

It could also be said that CMOD did not undertake any specific body of work to aid the Prison Service in this matter.

In summary, CMOD may have been constrained by the lack of resources available to them in providing support to all of the 13 Civil Service implementation projects, many taking place simultaneously. Learning from this process has since resulted in a change of approach to HRMS implementations for new users with a move to a common implementation.

Finally, Justice and the Prison Service were severely constrained in adapting the chosen system. The common HRMS system was customised for the Civil Service based on the Social Welfare and Revenue experience. The CMOD rationale of a common system across the service implied that modifications by users would interfere with future upgrades etc. so were not encouraged. The Prison Service environment, and consequently its IT needs, varies considerably from the broader Civil Service.

Summary Observations by the AccountingOfficer

The Accounting Officer said that while there clearly were issues with HRMS in the Prison Service that ultimately led to its withdrawal, it would not be accurate to say that the other four entities in the Justice Group experienced anything like the same level of difficulties. That said, there were teething problems with HRMS across the Justice Group as end users acclimatised and got used to the new system. He said there is nothing unusual about this as many end users to most new IT systems generally experience similar difficulties in adapting to new processes and technical configurations. While the other users in the Justice Group had less technical requirements and quickly came to terms with the new system, the unique requirements pertaining to the Prison Service were such that a long term commitment was not a viable option. He added that with the benefit of hindsight, it might have been preferable had the Prison Service decided not to go along as part of the Justice Group on the basis that its requirements were so fundamentally different to the generality of needs across the Civil Service, that any enhancements of a substantive nature post implementation would have been difficult, and prohibitively costly, to implement.

In summary, his Department had little option but to go along with HRMS as CMOD had decided to discontinue supporting enhancements on the existing PAS system. While the HRMS system has worked well in most of the Department's agencies, the experience in the Prison Service is that system does not meet the particular requirements there. The fact that the Prisons operate from 18 different locations, on a 24 hour/7 day per week basis with a range of atypical attendance patterns and unusual arrangements in relation to sick leave requirements etc, meant that a fully integrated HRMS system was always going to be difficult to achieve. Moreover, the overall situation in the Prison Service has also been exacerbated by the industrial relations scene in recent years including the need to reduce the substantial overtime bill.

He assured me that his Department had learned a very considerable lesson from its experiences with HRMS. Any further IT projects on a cross-agency basis, will need to be critically examined — irrespective of the demands or where they are coming from — to ensure that they can meet the requirements of the different entities involved.

Views of the Department of Finance

In light of the comments of the Accounting Officer, I asked the Department of Finance for its observations on the role of CMOD in the matter.

The Accounting Officer of the Department of Finance informed me that he believed that CMOD had met its obligations as regards the maintenance of a standard template for the new HR Management System, co-ordination of the maintenance of the common interfaces, responding to functional and technical support queries and managing and controlling HRMS customisations and co-ordinated upgrades of the product.

Ownership remained with Departments and Offices and ultimately it was their responsibility to allocate the appropriate resources to maintain and manage their instance of the HRMS software and also to provide day-to-day support of the system.

With reference to the comments of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, he made the following points

·While the Prison Service implementation took place in late 2003, his Department was unaware of the Prison Service problems until June 2004. CMOD were not notified of the decision to discontinue use of HRMS until the end of November 2004.

·Although some organisations experienced problems with the standard reports issued with the template, they could alter these to meet their specific requirements and many did so. CMOD also prepared 30 additional general-purpose reports for civil service application in the first quarter of 2004 and made them made available to the Justice Group at that time. They could be further refined or extended to meet particular requirements. This set of reports continues to be widely used, including use by non-HR staff in devolved locations.

·It was never envisaged that the original reports, or the additional set of 30, would be sufficient to meet all the needs of Departments or Offices. CMOD expected that Departments and Offices would develop further reports using the querying/reporting facilities provided by the HRMS.

·The CMOD set of reports does not require an export to an additional report-writing package as they can be run successfully within the HRMS application. However, the additional report-writing package referred to is in widespread use both within the civil service and worldwide. CMOD are aware of HRMS implementations that have over 100 reports, many of which are specific to their own needs, and would have been written in-house.

·In regard to the responsiveness of the system, CMOD do not agree with the Prison Service view as they consider that it would have been open to the Justice IT Unit to have provided more processing capacity if there had been a significant and persistent problem with running queries/reports. CMOD would also like to state that badly written queries/reports can have an adverse impact on system performance.

·CMOD could not accept any responsibility for network infrastructure deficiencies in the Prison Service and note that the HRMS desktop uses a web browser that requires far less network capacity than, for example, e-mail, word-processing, and older shared file databases.

·The production and content of letters from the system was always a matter for each individual Department/Office.

·CMOD have on many occasions provided HRMS assistance to the other Justice sites by phone, by e-mail and through on-site assistance. The Prison Service was provided specific assistance by phone and e-mail. Offers of support on report writing were made at a meeting with the Prison Service in June 2004 and at a meeting with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in September 2004, but these were not taken up.

·Offers by CMOD to make site visits to the Prison Service offices were also not taken up.

·CMOD were unaware of any instance where a lack of resources caused it not to respond to the Prison Service calls for assistance and support.

As a result of the experience of the 13 implementations of the HRMS, and following on from a CMOD study of shared services, the Civil Service HR community have used a private sector partner to implement the latest upgraded version of the HRMS. This will be a single implementation for the whole of the Civil Service and will eliminate the repetitive work and the multiplicity of computing resources associated with an individual approach to the implementations.

Mr. Aylward

I will pitch in and we will exchange roles as required. From a statutory point of view, the Secretary General of the Department remains the Accounting Officer for the prisons but, as we know, on a day to day basis the Prison Service is very much led by Mr. Brian Purcell and his management team in Clondalkin. If it is in order, I will proceed with the statement that has been circulated. This relates to the Prison Service human resource management system.

Delivering Better Government, published in May 1996, stated that the modernisation agenda in the Civil Service needed to be supported by changes in human resource management policy and practices, including the roll-out of modern IT-based human resource management systems in each Department or Office of the Civil Service. An advisory group drawn from across Departments subsequently recommended the acquisition of the PeopleSoft human resources management system known as HMRS. The implementation of HRMS across the Civil Service was to be a key feature of progressing the move to a more strategic approach to human resources management, including improved management information and reporting, with a greater emphasis on strategic HR issues, greater efficiency in administration, improved service to staff, an integrated system for both personnel administration and training and development and interfaces to other systems such as payroll. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform did not select HRMS but it faithfully implemented the system selected for the overall Civil Service in its family of agencies, which includes the Irish Prison Service.

While gardaí are public servants, it is an unusual feature with historic roots that prison officers are civil servants and enjoy rights and privileges associated with being members of the Civil Service. That is a little known fact and it is why the HRMS was rolled out to them. The team that adopted HRMS is, as far as I can establish, unlikely to have reflected very deeply on the implications of that system in that particular corner of the Civil Service which comprises the 3,500 employees of the Prison Service. I want to touch on the context in which this was rolled out in the Prison Service. I was serving there as Director General over much of this period. Most of the human resources in the Prison Service at the time were engaged in a very complex set of industrial negotiations with the Prison Service union. It was a life and death matter for them. The focus by the human resources director of the Prison Service was exclusively on those negotiations and I am happy to record that after seven years of strife and struggle we concluded a very favourable agreement for both sides in September last. The human resources senior management team was almost completely preoccupied by that process while this system was being rolled out. That is simply a contextual point.

In rolling out the system, a bespoke system was being put to one side. This was a system called DataEase. It was an old system and needed to be upgraded or replaced. Despite its age, however, it worked. DataEase dealt with some of the specialised business needs which are particular to the Irish Prison Service. These include staff who work shifts, work a 24-hour day, seven-day week, and roster patterns that change. There is also a much higher incidence of injury while on duty than would arise in any other Civil Service employment and there are responses to that of a particular kind which the new system was not designed to embrace. It is also fair to say, and it is something we have been confronting for some time, that there are very high levels of sick leave in the system. In the rest of the Civil Service, when people in a Department go sick during the day they are not replaced. In a prison they must be replaced instantly and people are detained from the previous shift or called in. Such requirements made the Prison Service's experience with HRMS different from that of other agencies where the system has been implemented. Ultimately, it was the failure of the PeopleSoft system to meet the requirements associated with high levels of injury and sick leave, shift patterns and overtime that led to the Irish Prison Service's early decision to discontinue use of the new system.

A project board comprising personnel officers from justice agencies implementing the HR system was appointed to oversee the project. The Prison Service believed that the agency should implement the HR system but that it should have the flexibility to determine the changes that were necessary to make it operationally effective. However, during implementation it found that there were severe limitations on what tweaking could be done with the system. Customisation was difficult to realise in practice. We also learned that changes to the overall central system would have adverse implications for other agencies sharing the system.

Nonetheless HRMS went live in October 2003 in all prisons. From the outset, operational problems arose. A key one related to prison officer sick leave. While the shortcomings of the HRMS in the area of sick leave might be seen as a single issue, it was of great importance to prison management. I have already mentioned the point that is made in the note about the necessity to replace staff on overtime, injuries on duty and excessive sick leave. There are also legal issues associated with this. It was vital, from the point of view of prison management, that we had an accurate, reliable, fast and efficient system. The HRMS did not prove robust enough to meet the particular needs of the Prison Service.

The system simply did not meet user expectations. It was more cumbersome than the existing system and less user friendly than expected. User acceptance by the prison clerks, who would be doing the inputting, was low. They found the system unwieldy. They were hesitant in its use and were continually complaining that it did not work. To try to address the complaints within three or four months of the system being introduced, the Prison Service set up a working group to address the difficulties arising. This group involved prison governors and other operational personnel.

The group quickly identified four possible options, namely, upgrade the existing system, upgrade it with a separate reporting facility for the prisons, upgrade the time and attendance system in the service, which is a separate system, or develop a new system. Each option was carefully evaluated in the context of the problems that were being experienced — the lack of confidence of the staff, the lack of progress in addressing shortcomings and the costs associated with continuing to use a system which was proving to be unsuited to the needs of the Prison Service.

Following evaluation, the option chosen was to return to the old system and develop a new one for the future. In September 2004, a decision was taken by senior management in the service to discontinue use of the new system and revert to the older one. Since then, consultants were awarded a small tender to conduct a HR business requirements analysis. That work is ongoing. In a couple of months we expect to have professional advice on where to go with this system. When the HRMS was abandoned in December 2004, the cost to the IPS was approximately €577,000, of which €341,000 was licence fees which had to be paid for the software.

I do not wish to become involved in a blame game or offer a commentary about the role played by CMOD in the matter. I am aware there are people from CMOD present. I would not suggest that the failure of the system is down to our colleagues in CMOD. Most of the difficulties arose post-implementation and I do not suggest that the CMOD people were at fault. It just did not work.

Since our experience, CMOD has been tweaking the system and there have been some positive developments. I understand it has gone to tender recently for a new shared services environment version of PeopleSoft. It plans to upgrade it to make it more user friendly. For the Prison Service, the introduction of the HRMS was a salutary experience. As an organisation, we found ourselves in a hole and we decided very early to stop digging. We did not continue to pour money into it. It was acknowledged that the system was not working so we stepped out of that hole and moved on. The decision to discontinue its use by the Prison Service was an example of good, not bad, governance. I do not suggest that anybody has said it was bad governance but I maintain it was an example of good governance. It was an admission that the thing was wrong and could not be fixed. The people involved did the right thing.

Mr. John Purcell

I will try not to cover the same ground dealt with by the Accounting Officer. The chapter outlines the circumstances in which a new IT human resource management system for the Prison Service was abandoned with consequential cost to the taxpayer of what has now been established as over €500,000. I will go back a little further and outline the background. CMOD assumed the lead role in acquiring a suitable software package which would have general application but which could be modified to suit the specific needs of Departments and offices. The chosen package was customised and was implemented on a pilot basis in both the Department of Social and Family Affairs and in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners. Once that was successfully achieved, the package was made available to other Departments, who were to take responsibility for implementing, funding, maintaining and operating the new HR system in their area.

The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform decided to implement the system across organisations within its remit. That included the Prison Service but, as the Accounting Officer said, it did not include the Garda Síochána. The Garda Síochána has yet to modernise its HR system.

The Department's objective of minimising implementation costs by using a single partner to prepare a composite customisation of the basic system for all five entities was commendable. However, while the implementation went smoothly in four of the entities, that was not the case in the Prison Service. There were problems there, a decision was made and in December 2004 the service reverted to using the old system pending the development of a tailor made system to meet its HR needs.

When we looked at this earlier this year, it appeared that money had been wasted. There were two possible scenarios. One was that the HR needs of the Prison Service had not been properly evaluated prior to opting for this system. Alternatively, it was possibly because there was a lack of commitment on the part of the Prison Service to make the new system work. It was from that point of view that I made my inquiries of the Accounting Officer. The committee will see in the report where the Accounting Officer sets out why, in his opinion, the new system did not work in the service. He elaborated on those reasons in his opening statement.

What he said in response to my inquiries was that the extra functionality required by the Prison Service was extensive, that the system's capacity to provide the necessary reports was poor and, although the specified training was carried out, that the clerks in the prisons were uncomfortable with the system. He also referred to a changeover of staff when the Prison Service moved to Clondalkin, with a resultant loss of relevant corporate knowledge which did not help either. The Accounting Officer also appeared to suggest that CMOD's support was not all that it should have been although, as the representative of the Department of Finance would point out, CMOD strongly disagreed with this view. The Accounting Officer has modified his views in this regard in his opening statement.

It is still not clear to me whether the system was abandoned because it was not fundamentally suitable or because insufficient effort was made to get it to work in the specialised area of prisons. Perhaps we will be wiser after today's meeting.

Deputy Deasy

My first question relates to the Accounting Officer's response about the system. He said that the business needs particular to the Prison Service involve dealing with staff that work irregular hours, injuries on duty, compensation for injuries, generation of sick leave reports, letters for staff and the withdrawal of sick leave. This specialised set of requirements has made the Prison Service's experience with the HRMS different from other State agencies. The failure of the HRMS to meet the particular needs led to the decision to discontinue its use. In my opinion, this specialised set of requirements is common to the Garda Síochána, the health services, the Defence Forces and the Customs and Excise. Does Mr. Aylward agree?

Mr. Aylward

I do not totally agree. The Customs and Excise service is not quite the same. I must point out that neither the Garda Síochána nor the Defence Forces use that system. While it is true that the Garda Síochána has a similar system to that operating in the prisons, it was not forced to adopt this human resources system but the Prison Service was.

Deputy Deasy

I see. The request for tender sought an implementation partner for the basic HRMS model. The idea was that individual agencies would modify it to fill any gaps. There were a couple of pilot schemes, such as those in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Social and Family Affairs. As I understand it, there was a generic model which was tailored to meet the needs of a particular office or Department. My question is why were the gaps not identified in the pre-implementation stage or in the evaluation of requirements stage?

Mr. Aylward

The gaps were known and were identified but an overly optimistic view was taken as to the ease with which the system could be tweaked to meet the Prison Service's needs.

Deputy Deasy

An overly optimistic view was taken. Can Mr. Aylward go into more detail?

Mr. Aylward

I am unsure whether I can say much more about it. Clearly, there was a recognition that this was not nine-to-five clerical employment and that the features of the system relating to attendance would be different. In addition, the reliance of the service on overtime is phenomenal. The latter is well known. However, the people dealing with this system were put under considerable pressure to adopt what was a general Civil Service human resources policy, which was to opt for this generic system. A view was taken that it would not be that difficult to tweak. That was a mistake. However, the recognition came quickly that it was not working and I have delineated what happened subsequently.

Deputy Deasy

Very well. Who made that decision?

Mr. Aylward

Who decided it was not working? The management board.

Deputy Deasy

Who made the mistaken decision?

Mr. Aylward

I do not feel I can name a single individual. It was a departmental decision. Perhaps my colleague, Mr. Brian Purcell, the Director General of the Prison Service, might like to comment.

Deputy Deasy

Were thousands or hundreds of people involved?

Mr. Aylward

I think it would have been decided by the people dealing with computers. Perhaps Mr. Brian Purcell might comment.

Deputy Deasy

Surely someone makes the final decision with regard to an item of technology of this nature. The buck stops with someone. In some Departments it does not seem to. Who made this decision?

Mr. Brian Purcell

When the problems with the system became apparent to people using it in the prisons, it was quickly flagged to headquarters. A group was set up comprising people from headquarters and those representing the front-line users. The group examined the issues involved and then reported back to the directors of human resources and finance in the Prison Service in respect of the issues involved. Following examination of the review group's findings, linked with the views we received from the operators on the front line — including front-line managers, namely, the prison governors — the decision was then taken that the system was not working.

While I will not go back over the details covered by Mr. Aylward concerning sick leave, the fundamental problem with regard to the implementation of this system in the prisons was in respect of the recording of various aspects of attendance and the ensuing issues. I might point out that, as Mr. Aylward noted, this happened at a time when a significant industrial relations process was under way. The purpose of that process was to try to deal with the massive expenditure on overtime. In that context, in 2003 the Prison Service had expended just under €60 million on overtime. As part of the process, a tight squeeze was put on our overtime budgets. During 2003 and 2004, we were expected to make massive cuts in overtime expenditure. We were very successful in that regard. Ultimately, we reduced the amount of overtime by one quarter, knocking €15 million off the bill. When that was combined with some savings made by not filling posts, the actual savings in expenditure amounted to €25 million.

As members can imagine, however, in a situation where a major squeeze is being put on overtime expenditure, introducing a computer system to cover the human resources elements, particularly the sick leave element, which is a major bone of contention——

Deputy Deasy

Is Mr. Brian Purcell saying there was resistance within?

Mr. B. Purcell

No I am not saying that. I am just trying to explain——

Deputy Deasy

Was there any resistance because it was a more dedicated and more effective system to deal with sick leave, overtime and the other issues?

Mr. B. Purcell

No, I do not think so. In fact the opposite was true because, as the Deputy can imagine, the management of the Prison Service was highly aware of the difficulties pertaining to sick leave. It has been committed to dealing with them as they contributed in a large way to the excessive amount of overtime spending. My point is that while the introduction of a new computer system in normal times always brings teething problems and associated difficulties, this was done at a time when there were significant cutbacks in expenditure. Obviously, that had an effect on all operations in the prisons but had an operational effect on the areas which were trying to implement the system. That is the point I was trying to make.

Deputy Deasy

Very well. In Chapter 6.1 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, on page 51, in a response to a question as to why the specific needs of the Prison Service were not recognised and factored into the implementation, the Accounting Officer stated, "HRMS managed to provide much of the functionality of the existing system, but was noticeably weaker than the old system in some key areas used by the Prison Service". However, further on, in response to a question from the Comptroller and Auditor General as to whether acceptance tests were performed to ensure delivery of a fully operational system, the Accounting Officer's reply was "in the Prison Service tests, post go-live, the differences between HRMS and the old system were limited and for the most part due to different features of the new system". Hence, at the top of page 51 of the report, there is a statement by the Accounting Officer with regard to the system being noticeably weaker and at the bottom of the page, the same person states that the differences between HRMS and the old system were limited. Can that contradiction be explained? To my mind, there is a difference or a contradiction in the Accounting Officer's statements.

Mr. B. Purcell

There is a slight difference. When the user testing was carried out, it showed that the system appeared to be working according to plan. It was only when the system went live in the prisons that problems which did not crop up in user testing clearly manifested themselves in the actual operation of the system. Some of these were due to infrastructural issues that would have had to be dealt with if a new system, whether it be HRMS or otherwise, was being introduced, as an add-on to the existing system or a newly developed system. There was a variance. Perhaps the user testing was not as thorough as it should have been or should have shown up these problems earlier. For example, when we checked the speeds, the various functions operated well. However, when the system went live, we found that the response times were way outside the acceptable limits we had flagged rather than well within them. While the user testing results seemed to show that it would work, the actual experience, once it went live, showed the opposite. Therefore, the Deputy is correct in saying there was a variance.

Deputy Deasy

On Vote 19, note No. 9 indicates multi-annual capital commitments involve a financial and management project for the Department and its agencies which cost €15.8 million for the first year — the year ending 31 December 2004. Will Mr. Aylward explain this to me?

Mr. Aylward

It is the overall financial management system for the Department and its agencies. One could say it concerns payroll and the issue of cheques by the office of the Department in Killarney which provides a shared financial service for the courts, the Prison Service, the Garda Síochána and the Department itself. It is a very large system which has been successfully installed in the past two or three years. It has gone live and is working well. It has been a very successful project.

Because it was such a large project for the Department and its agencies, my colleagues in Killarney, with considerable foresight, decided that in order to protect ourselves from a mistake or the prospect of the project going wrong without us realising it, they should place a small contract with a project quality assurance specialist. I do not know if it is appropriate to name the companies involved. The main contract was placed with Accenture. We placed a contract, following a competition, with a project quality assurance operator called Helm Corporation. This independent third party support in the roll-out of the programme to which Deputy Deasy referred has proved to be hugely successful for us. It provided great reassurance for the project board that we had independent advice that the project was being carried out correctly and that we were getting maximum value from the Oracle financial management system which covers the Garda Síochána, the courts, prisons and the Land Registry. The project took two and a half years to complete and came in on time and on budget.

Deputy Deasy

On subhead G.11 which deals with crime prevention measures, an underspend of €650,000 was recorded. This represents 49% of the estimated provision of €1.35 million. Will Mr. Aylward explain what these crime prevention measures were?

Mr. Aylward

It concerned primarily an initiative taken by a private trust called Crimestoppers which we agreed to support on the basis that there would be matching funds. Crimestoppers is composed of persons in the insurance world and the commercial sector and encourages people to ring a confidential telephone line and disclose information that might lead to the detection or prevention of an offence. As the trust failed to come up with the matching funds, the initiative did not proceed. This was the primary reason it did not go ahead.

Funds were also set aside to establish a national structure for the Garda Síochána-sponsored scheme, Neighbourhood Watch, work on which took longer than the Garda Síochána had anticipated. We did not spend the money because it was not ready to go live with it.

Deputy Deasy

Any Deputy would be concerned if he or she saw such a figure not being used for crime prevention measures. The Department gave me some figures last week. I had asked for figures for policing in each large urban area. If one begins in Dublin which has one garda per 300 head of population, one finds the area with the least amount is Waterford with one garda per 500. I know this is not Mr. Aylward's call; essentially the numbers come from the Garda Commissioner's office and there are reasons for them but this struck me as being a remarkable figure. There is a crime survey conducted during the summer months. One of the figures that emerged was that 49% of respondents indicated they or members of their families had been victims of crime in the past five years. The Garda Commissioner's office responded to the figures by saying the crime level in a particular area was one of the significant factors in deciding on the number of gardaí in a particular area. I question whether the Garda Síochána has got the criteria right with regard to the levels of policing in Waterford. I am not saying this based on the figures from the crime survey but on anecdotal evidence gleaned from talking to senior gardaí. The Garda Síochána has a serious problem. In some places the levels of gardaí are not appropriately stacked. I make this point as strongly as possible. The situation, particularly in Waterford city, will get worse unless more bodies are brought in.

I understand that during the years Mr. Aylward has heard Deputies carp and drone on about garda numbers. However, in this case, the crime figures do not make sense when one looks at the numbers of gardaí. I am basing this on the figures Mr. Aylward gave me last week from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, on anecdotal evidence and conversations I have had with local gardaí as well as figures I put together myself over the summer. It is a serious issue. I appreciate 2,000 gardaí will come on stream in the next few years but at the very least I make the case that Mr. Aylward should use his influence to ensure that some of these will be assigned to address an imbalance in Waterford.

Mr. Aylward

I read the findings of the Deputy's survey in The Munster Express. I am quite sure that Garda management in Waterford and other counties or districts would like to have more gardaí. My responsibility was to assist the Minister in securing a Government decision to boost garda numbers from 12,000 to 14,000. The Garda College in Templemore is bursting at the seams. Gardaí in training are practically sitting on each other’s laps. We are engaged in an enormous recruitment drive. A new recruitment drive has just begun. It involves looking for a broader base of individuals from different ethnic backgrounds to reflect the new society gardaí are policing. The Garda Commissioner is committed to the appropriate assignment of gardaí. Historically, we have never invoked the power of the purse to force the Garda to put people into different sections. On the civil side, successive Ministers and officials such as I have taken the view that this is a call for expert policing leadership. My training and instinct is to respect the professional judgment of the Commissioner.

Deputy Deasy

That is fair.

Mr. Aylward

He is clear he would like more people.

Deputy Deasy

I am strongly questioning the figures and criteria in respect of the formula used to put a number of gardaí in a particular place. Mr. Aylward must re-examine the criteria, figures and formulae used because the Department is wrong in how it deals with this matter in some instances. The figures I saw last week bear this out as far as Waterford city in particular is concerned.

Mr. Aylward

The Deputy is making a strong case for the Commissioner to further examine the issue. I can only inform the committee that these points will be relayed to him. I will send the committee any further information that is generated through its secretary. It is a vexed issue.

I will touch on a small matter that arises in terms of carrying out the assessment, namely, is the Garda Síochána getting it right in addressing what I term core policing issues? We in the Department do not feel we are well enough equipped to attempt to second guess or debate beyond a certain point with the Commissioner about where he is putting his people and how policing styles and patterns operate. We have felt this weakness for some time, our response to which was reflected in the Garda Síochána Act 2005 passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas and signed into law by the President in August. In the Act, we created the power to establish a new, small organisation in the form of a Garda Síochána inspectorate that will report to the Minister.

A small number of recently retired and very senior police officers, probably from around the English-speaking world, will comprise the inspectorate. They will carry out benchmarking-type examinations of different aspects of Garda operations, be they deployment, which has just been touched on by the Deputy, or styles of policing, for example, the ways in which we would deal with public order problems or criminal investigations in different districts. We will benchmark these against best international practice. We do not have the people or skills necessary to push the debate much further than the Deputy has already done but we are moving rapidly to create this instrument, which I hope will bear fruit.

Ultimately, I do not want to undermine the Garda Síochána or the Commissioner. The Garda inherited a set of deployments from the organisation that commanded the RIC and the country and it did not change its patterns of policing or numbers for a long period. However, over the years it has deployed extra gardaí as they came on stream to areas where it felt pressure was greatest. The latter tended to reflect a mix of crime patterns, on one hand, and levels of crime and population movements, as stated in the reply given to the Deputy, on the other. We maintain a police presence in some sparsely populated areas of rural Ireland that does not bear much relationship to the levels of crime but members of the public, even if they are small in number and law abiding, need to know that gardaí are present. The Garda Síochána must respond to many pressures.

Deputy Curran

I apologise that I was not present for a short time. Mr. Aylward can stop me if I repeat something that has been said. I wish to address the human resources management system, HRMS. Without going into detail on its implementation, a total of just under €500,000 was spent on this project, approximately half of which was on pre-implementation. What does this mean in simple terms?

Mr. Aylward

My understanding is that €341,000 was spent on software licensing fees, which is the most expensive modern undertaking. Technology has become ubiquitous and one must pay for software systems.

Deputy Curran

Let us make it simple. On page 50 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, table 20 contains information on pre-implementation for the Irish Prison Service and lists a figure of €248,340. What was physically happening at that stage?

Mr. Aylward

My understanding, subject to correction from my colleagues, is that the expenditure related to the up-front payment for the licences. The other work was done in-house.

Deputy Curran

Does the money represent any forward planning? Was it used to buy a licence?

Mr. Aylward

That is what I am told.

Mr. B. Purcell

That is the case. We were informed that if the licences were not paid for before the end of 2001, their cost would increase in multiples. Due to the fact that the Department was involved in setting up the HRMS, we must pay an amount proportionate to the number of staff we had in the prison service. The figures mentioned by the Deputy cover the cost of the licences from the end of 2001.

Deputy Curran

Nearly €250,000 came out of the prison service's budget. What evaluation had the Department made of the system by that time?

Mr. B. Purcell

Does the Deputy mean the HRMS?

Deputy Curran

Yes.

Mr. B. Purcell

We did not conduct the evaluation of the system. The HRMS was a generic system introduced to the entire Civil Service.

Deputy Curran

As much as €250,000 was spent on a licence. Did someone in the Irish Prison Service not query what the system could do for it? The money was paid in 2000-01 but, if these dates are correct, it was 2003 before any implementation began. When the Department paid for the licences, specifically the licence that cost €250,000, had there been an examination within the Prison Service of what the HRMS would do for it or was the cheque just paid over?

Mr. B. Purcell

We had the DataEase system in place and realised that it had a time limit in terms of its functionality in the Prison Service. We knew that we would need to move on. The HRMS was suggested as a generic system to cover all Departments. In this context, we would have engaged in the process in so far as we examined our needs and how our existing system would not fulfil every need, even though it addressed specific vitally important areas.

In terms of evaluation of the HRMS, however, we identified what it needed to do for us. At that stage, our preference would have been to acquire a system independently of other Departments but we were part of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform's "family" in terms of the implementation of this system. We may have been overly optimistic in our belief that this system would fulfil all of our requirements. As was subsequently determined, it did not address one need that was critical to our operations when we implemented it.

Deputy Curran

Is there a specific IT department in either the Prison Service or the Department?

Mr. B. Purcell

There is an IT section in the Prison Service and an IT unit in the Department.

Deputy Curran

Do they have the relevant expertise?

Mr. B. Purcell

Yes.

Deputy Curran

Were the IT experts within the prison service consulted on this matter?

Mr. B. Purcell

Yes.

Deputy Curran

What did they say?

Mr. B. Purcell

When we examined the Irish Prison Service, we felt the system as it appeared to us at that stage would deal with the relevant issues, which I understand was also the view of the IT section of the Department. A project board, consisting of the personnel officers in the Department, was established.

Deputy Curran

I ask Mr. Brian Purcell to focus on IT rather than personnel officers. The IT sections in the prison section and the Department felt that-——

Mr. B. Purcell

They both felt the HRMS system would work.

Deputy Curran

Would it meet requirements?

Mr. B. Purcell

While we thought it would work, I am not sure we had a great choice. This was introduced to the justice family and our understanding was there would be no more support for any other system. HRMS was the system being introduced and had to meet the needs, with modifications as required.

Deputy Curran

Apart from meeting the existing needs in the system, I presume the Irish Prison Service expected HRMS to have additional functionality and benefits. Otherwise a change would not have been made.

Mr. B. Purcell

Yes.

Deputy Curran

What were some of those benefits?

Mr B. Purcell

The speed of response times for all HR functions, covering areas such as training, recruitment and transport, would have improved.

Deputy Curran

Does this apply to staffing levels?

Mr. B. Purcell

Yes, these were the additional benefits. The principal reason, outlined in Delivering Better Government, was that the management information provided by the system would be of major benefit to senior management in all Departments and, in turn, to the Government.

Deputy Curran

When the roll-out commenced, how did the first difficulties arise?

Mr. B. Purcell

When we started to roll it out the first indication that problems were occurring was reports from individual prisons. We heard that the system was not fulfilling its functions in respect of sick leave and attendant related features.

Deputy Curran

Did that start in September 2003? How quickly did the problem become apparent?

Mr. B. Purcell

Yes, and over the following few months it became apparent from reports from prisons that issues regarding HRMS had to be resolved. The principal failing was in respect of sick leave and attendant features that recorded the amount of time out and issuing warning letters after a certain amount of time. Due to court precedence we are obliged to do this and difficulties arose primarily in respect of this issue.

As I stated to Deputy Deasy, there were also problems regarding response times and these varied from prison to prison. When the system went live, the response times did not correspond to the results of user tests. There was a significant discrepancy and the slowness of the system was causing major problems.

Deputy Curran

Mr. Brian Purcell mentioned that it was slow. I presume the IT department examined it. What did they find to be the reason for this slowness?

Mr. B. Purcell

The infrastructure available varied from prison to prison. This was something that would have to be addressed with a new system. Since then, a considerable amount of money has been spent on upgrading that infrastructure. If it was going live now, response times would be less of an issue.

Deputy Curran

Problems were reported, particularly in respect of sick leave. The computer system was unable to manage letters regarding sick leave. Who did the Irish Prison Service approach to resolve this? Was it the IT section of the Irish Prison Service, the IT section of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform or was the Centre for Management Organisation and Development, CMOD, called in?

Mr. B. Purcell

My recollection is that the issues were taken up at the project board, on which there would have been a representative of CMOD.

Deputy Curran

If it was my business and the computer system was not working, I would contact someone, either internal or external. This information is critical.

Mr. Aylward

The list of the difficulties described by Brian Purcell was drawn up and presented to CMOD and BearingPoint, the consultants appointed to oversee the roll-out of the project across the five agencies in the justice system. Having been notified of the difficulties, the working group conducted an evaluation exercise of the options available. The group worked through the options, conferring with people as it did so. It is striking that walking away from it was the correct course of action. I have studied the history of IT problems across governments in other countries and the main mistake made when in a hole such as this is to keep digging. Money is thrown at something that is not working. After realising the system would not work, it was a courageous and correct decision to halt its use. I applaud the staff who took that decision.

Deputy Curran

I am not disputing that because I do not have evidence to make a judgment.

Mr. Aylward

That is my view.

Deputy Curran

This was to confer significant benefits on the service that it still has not received because there is no comparable replacement system. As a result of the inability to write letters in respect of sick leave, the entire system was abandoned. We discussed the slowness of the system and Mr. Brian Purcell stated that the infrastructure needed to be upgraded. I can understand that but I find it difficult to accept that one element of reporting was sufficient to shut this down. I am not privy to external consultants and the reports they may have produced. If this was my business, I would try to implement the one additional function that was required, bearing in mind the additional benefits, the increased efficiency and other cost savings that would accrue.

Mr. Aylward

Sick leave was the biggest single issue in the Prison Service. It was the elephant in the parlour and drove most of our overtime, which I described as a cancer in the service. It was the single biggest issue we faced and we were involved in a life and death struggle with the union to deal with it. It was similar to a carousel, with some people taking sick leave and others getting overtime from this. We had to break the link between individuals taking sick leave and colleagues making money from it.

Deputy Curran

If the computer system had operated as envisaged, would it have highlighted this issue to a greater extent?

Mr. Aylward

The whole aspiration was to have this information quicker so that patterns would become clearer. We were not dealing with a conventional team of data entry staff. We had to work with the staff we had, who were spread throughout the country. They found the new system unwieldy and slower to manage than other systems. A real effort was made to make it work as everyone wanted to derive more value and more management information. It simply did not work. It was correctly pronounced dead because it did not provide us with what we required. It affected the system and the courageous and correct decision was made to stop it. We now evaluate all of our options with professional advice and we will migrate to a new bespoke system which will suit the uniqueness of the Prison Service and which will fit in with the management information system that Government, the Department of Finance and everyone else needs. The loss to the Exchequer is minute in the context of the overall scale of operations in the Prison Service and computers generally.

Deputy Curran

Mr. Aylward refers to €450,000 as minute but many might see it as one part of the cost of a failed exercise. The other side of that argument is that had the system operated correctly and efficiently, other cost benefits would have accrued to the Department. I do not consider €450,000 as the full figure.

Mr. Aylward

I would argue that we cut our losses.

Deputy Curran

I do not have access to that information. I have a final question. Did Mr Aylward engage with CMOD before it was decided to write the system off and was CMOD afforded an opportunity to help modify the system?

Mr. Aylward

I will touch on that after my colleagues have examined the correspondence. I wish to make one core principal point. In working life, in both the private and public sectors, it is impossible that every project will work. Some projects must be written off and this is accepted completely in commercial life. One tries something and if it does not work, one acknowledges it has failed, stops and moves on.

Deputy Curran

That point——

Mr. Aylward

I reject the argument that it is heinous if a project does not work out and creates a loss. It is not. Progress cannot be made in society if one does not attempt projects. It is important to have hindsight and scrutiny and I am in favour of them. However, if we have a system in which people are not allowed to fail and move on but are criticised, we will have a culture in which people will be encouraged to disguise failure and to continue when they are wrong. I reject that approach. We should acknowledge failure. In this case we acknowledged that a mistake was made, promptly stopped and moved on. That was a splendid example of good governance.

Deputy Curran

As a public accounts committee, we must scrutinise the manner in which the issue was dealt with. I agree that a point in time comes where projects, if they are not working, must be abandoned. That does not take away from the fact that, as a committee responsible for public accounts, one area about which we are concerned is whether sufficient pre-evaluation of the system took place.

Mr. Aylward

That is a fair criticism and I accept it.

Deputy Curran

In any commercial business projects are evaluated and I understand that computerised systems fail in commercial applications and I have seen it happen. It is not good enough to state that one will try a particular system and if it does not work, one will try a different system. Mr. Aylward knows it involves more than that.

I accept his point that a time comes when one must abandon a project. My point of view, as a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, is that process is not as transparent and obvious from where we sit. Mr. Aylward has access to reviews and analysis that helped him to come to that decision. We do not have those reports and did not engage in that process.

Mr. Aylward

I accept those points and I did not intend to be critical. It is worth noting that a strategic decision to adopt a centralised system in an operation the size of Government puts enormous pressure on smaller agencies to go with the flow. That is what they did and consultants were retained and advised them. A test run was carried out but it was clearly insufficient. The committee is correct to flag that and point out that a mistake was made. Hindsight shows it was not tested robustly enough. It should have been tested to destruction. A lesson must be learned. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report pointed that out and the committee has correctly focused on it. I accept that point.

I wish to make the wider point that there seems to be a malaise today whereby people are not allowed make mistakes. I would not like to discourage my staff from taking appropriate risks and have a culture where if a project does not work, they are punished as individuals or named and shamed when they acted correctly. I want people who make mistakes to come forward promptly to call a halt to their effects. That is what happened in this instance. I reiterate that point because it is extremely important from the point of view of good governance in the Civil Service that people admit when something goes wrong and fix it. This was a good example of people realising something was wrong and stopping it within months.

Deputy Curran

I want to move away from the system for a moment. I have many questions and issues with regard to Vote 19. The original Estimate for asylum seekers' accommodation was approximately €69 million and there was a Supplementary Estimate of approximately €14 million. The total was €83.5 million. What happened during the course of the year that necessitated that figure to change so radically?

Mr. Aylward

The first point I will make is that, with the Chairman's blessing, we sent away the members of our team who are experts on asylum.

Deputy Curran

I apologise.

Mr. Aylward

I will attempt to assist the committee and the Deputy. Asylum seekers' accommodation is entirely demand driven, with no predictability regarding who will arrive in the country and demand refuge and have all their needs met. As people arrived, accommodation was secured for them. We experienced surges at different times. While the Department may be criticised for being leaden-footed at times, it made an extraordinary and swift response in what was a tight rental market at the time to secure accommodation. This led to the requirement for a Supplementary Estimate. I apologise for the fact that I do not have more information on this issue. We were told it would not arise today and we sent away the experts.

Deputy Curran

It was not meant in that way. I am examining it from the point of view that it is a significant variation. I take the point that it is demand led and that the Department did not know the numbers it would have to accommodate. Were the numbers dealt with significantly greater or did rental charges rise significantly?

Mr. Aylward

The year under review had a number of features which may have led to the surge, including the referendum on Irish-born children. That was flagged well in advance and people were rushing to beat the deadline with regard to Irish-born children. Factors such as that contributed to the situation. I do not want to stray too far into this issue because the experts have left. It might be an issue for another day. I received three days' notice that we would touch on this Vote and I made the point that I would struggle with some details because of the short notice.

Deputy Curran

We heard Mr. Aylward is an extremely able man and three days' notice was plenty.

Mr. Aylward

I have some extremely able colleagues but they need a little time to work on these issues.

Deputy Curran

We will deal with this issue on another day.

Mr. Aylward

Our Vote runs to billions and it is extensive.

Chairman

All of the members of the committee have noted the significant disagreement on this issue between the Departments of Finance and Justice, Equality and Law Reform, as reflected in the chapter. Before Deputy Dennehy speaks, I ask an official from the Department of Finance to make an opening statement to establish its position.

Mr. Dave Ring

I work in CMOD in the Department of Finance. I will give the committee some context with regard to the HRMS.

The HRMS is a repository for hard facts and keeps details on service and pensions. CMOD is a central broker and as such was charged with implementing a common HR system. As Mr. John Purcell stated earlier, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Revenue Commissioners assisted in drafting a set of arrangements and functionality to meet the needs of the general Civil Service. Once it was agreed, it was rolled out on a Department-by-Department basis.

It was felt the functionality agreed would cover the Civil Service and a number of groups were established, including a management group, a user group and a technical group. The management group is particularly important because it decided on enhancements and customisation. The idea was that it was to be a common system to meet common needs and it could not cater for particular needs. However, when the system was implemented as originally designed, there was always the option to add customized features for compiling reports and so forth. We often produced 100 reports at a time. I acknowledge that as a system is being implemented, report functions are always an issue and people always look for more options. When we were informed of this, we developed a number of report functions that we felt would meet a certain number of needs. We developed management reports outlining, for example, details on numbers, full-time equivalents, those approaching retirement and so on. On staff, we developed reports detailing the numbers on a career break, probation or at a particular grade. We also did some work on the issue of absence from work, recording details on sick leave by grade and over a period of years. We created reports to determine the type of training staff required, detailing the courses they had already attended, as well as the waiting lists for courses. Until we put a new arrangement in place, we were looking for a new paradigm to implement the HRMS because we were not getting best value for money. We felt we should have a single application form that many could use. We decided to implement the system in 2004.

As each Department had to go to the market with its own implementation project, there were 13 instances of system implementation, including the Department of Social and Family Affairs and Revenue. One was the Justice group, which ran the system within five organisations. I am unclear on the work done to consolidate the needs of each of the components. In effect, what was being offered to the market was a common template to deal with issues such as service, personal details, training, absence and so on. That is, broadly, the offering from CMOD.

Chairman

Did Mr. Ring have the capacity to assist on implementation?

Mr. Ring

An implementation partner was selected. I had a core group of staff dealing with common systems who would move from implementation to implementation. It should be noted that we did not implement the system in all 13 instances at the same time. The Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Revenue Commissioners were done first and, being large organisations, they had their own IT staff. After that, we rolled out the system at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and so on. The typical scenario was that every two or three months we were receiving a new RFT for an implementation partner. The money listed went, in the main, to two organisations. Our staff assisted but only at the first level. The more detailed and professional support was provided by outside consultants who had a technical and functional understanding of the package. Our staff had a very good working knowledge but did not have had the complete functional and technical understanding of the experts working on the product.

Chairman

Was Mr. Ring surprised when the Prison Service abandoned the system?

Mr. Ring

Of the 17 instances, the Prison Service is the only body which has abandoned the system. In that context, I was surprised. However, I understand it had particular needs in dealing with the issue of sick leave, among others.

There are about four leading HR system packages on the market. The one we implemented was a Peoplesoft system but there are others available from Oracle, SAP and Comhar, which handles most of our payroll. These packages come customized for the private sector and part of the work we do is to customize them for the Civil Service. This includes taking account of family-friendly policies by allowing for work-sharing, term-time flexibility and the terms and conditions that prevail within the Civil Service. It also includes providing links to a pay scale system. We are expanding this work to include links to payroll. Time and attendance issues also form part of the customization process. The system is, in effect, a repository for hard facts. In my view, time and attendance records should not be included in the system.

Chairman

Does Mr. Ring think the system could have been adapted to meet the needs of the Prison Service, particularly in the issuing of letters about sick leave along the lines suggested by Deputy Curran?

Mr. Ring

It would have been very difficult to incorporate changes required by the prison system because of the way the HRMS system had been implemented. There was one implementation for five organisations. If it had been done individually, the system could have been tailored. The issue of reports was one we left to Departments. If they wished to have their own reports, the option was there to have implementation partners to provide reports and letters.

Chairman

It seems the system had been abandoned for several months before Mr. Ring was informed.

Mr. Ring

That is not unusual. As far as we are concerned, Departments are working with implementation partners and unless we are notified of issues or problems, we assume the system is working satisfactorily. I have no difficulty in that regard.

Chairman

The note I have states the Department of Finance was only made aware of the problem in June 2004.

Mr. Ring

It is with hindsight that we are able to say that. Sorry, did the Chairman say June 2004?

Chairman

Yes.

Mr. Ring

We were actually notified later than that. We were made aware in June 2004 that reports were needed but we did not receive a formal notification from the head of HR until the end of November. However, we had soundings regarding problems at the end of September.

Mr. Aylward

I ask my colleagues in the Department of Finance to check the records on this matter. We can share any correspondence we have with them. I do not want to get into an argument but we have documentation which proves notification was sent prior to the dates mentioned. However, rather than delay the meeting, perhaps we could agree that the Department of Finance representatives will check their records. We can share with them and the committee, if necessary, the correspondence on this matter. We have correspondence from a much earlier date on record.

Chairman

Will Mr. Aylward send the correspondence to the committee?

Mr. Aylward

We will be happy to do so but I do not want to turn this into an argument about who said what and when.

Chairman

That is not my intention either.

Mr. Aylward

It is certainly not mine.

Chairman

Perhaps I am wrong, but CMOD was effectively the Civil Service consultant in rolling out computer systems throughout the service. In that capacity, one would expect that there would have been a considerable interchange between CMOD in the Department of Finance, the prison authorities and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. That interchange does not seem to have taken place. While I share Deputy Curran's view, I seek clarification on whether, if the difficulties had been brought to the attention of CMOD in a timely fashion, it could have recommended an adaptation that would have met the needs of the Prison Service. The key problem seems to be the issuing of letters about sick leave.

Mr. Ring

We do not have sufficient expertise on the HRM system to give comprehensive advice but we certainly would have been able to give advice on certain elements. However, as a strategic option, we never forced anybody to accept the product. It is always important that Departments make their own decisions to meet their own needs. We would not have forced the system on anybody.

It is important to point out that we do not have professional staff who work with professional HR systems. Therefore, the advice we would give would be amateur, if I can use that term. It would be based on experience but would not be something over which we could stand because our staff do not have deep knowledge of matters relating to personnel units or functionality. We would only have a working knowledge of a product and would probably seek third party assistance for advice on adaptations.

Chairman

In the early stages of the meeting Mr. Aylward said, "We were forced to adopt this system". Now he is saying he did not press it on anybody.

Mr. Ring

It was incumbent on the Civil Service to put a strategic HR system in place. This requirement was highlighted in reviews of the strategic management initiative conducted several years ago. What we had in place was an old PAS system, a personnel administration system, on a platform that became obsolete in the mid-1980s. It was working on a wing and a prayer. It was incumbent on us to examine an offering which we felt would meet Civil Service needs. Agencies and large Departments may feel their respective needs are not met by what is common to the Civil Service. While we are in a position to investigate opportunities to provide a common system, I do not believe we forced the system on anybody.

Chairman

Mr. Ring's statement seems to contradict my understanding. I thought CMOD was a group of computer experts who applied their skills to solving difficulties in installing systems across the Civil Service. Mr. Ring now says the group effectively consisted of well meaning but inexperienced amateurs.

Mr. Ring

I was referring to the common system rather than the staff working on it. We have expertise in technical policy, communications, organisational development and information technology development. I may have misunderstood the Chairman in this regard but I referred to the staff we had in the provision of support with a common system.

Chairman

I am only trying to clarify the situation. If the Prison Service had informed CMOD that problems were being experienced in issuing letters to prison officers on sick leave, would it have been possible to rectify the problem?

Mr. Ring

We would have engaged with it and come to an arrangement between us.

Chairman

It never communicated its difficulties to CMOD.

Mr. Ring

I do not know how to answer that question. It did not communicate with me personally and I do not have any internal records. No one mentioned this matter. I acknowledge that there are issues. Earlier, we met the management group, to which everybody involved with the HRMS had an input. We were informed that there were difficulties in terms of reports. As I indicated, we wrote some 30 reports which we felt would meet the generic needs of Departments. Everyone was of the opinion that we should meet common system requirements and generic needs. We provided reports on managing staff absences and training that we felt would meet generic needs.

Deputy Dennehy

My inquiries follow similar lines to those of the Chairman. I noted Mr. Aylward's comment on not apportioning blame but the Department of Finance obviously had no such inhibitions in that regard. I am disappointed with the defence of the situation by Mr. Aylward because this committee has for a long time encouraged the development of a common database. People might argue that they are unique but this has cost the State tens of millions of euro. For example, we found that the Companies Registration Office was not linked to Revenue and nobody was aware of five or six companies located in Dublin. The Department of Social and Family Affairs was not linked to Revenue. This obtained down the line and cost the country a fortune. Some 17 groups were on board.

This committee would never rebuke anybody for making a mistake but that is not a full defence. The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General was unusually blunt in its response to this issue. I never saw such a forthright report as this, which stated the Department of Finance was not aware until June 2004 of Prison Service problems which arose in late December 2003. It further stated CMOD could not accept any responsibility for network infrastructural deficiencies. The web browser was blamed but CMOD did not agree with the Prison Service view. The report went on to state:

... offers of support on report writing were made at a meeting with the Prison Service in June 2004 and at a meeting with the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in September 2004, but these were not taken up. Offers by CMOD to make site visits to the Prison Service offices were also not taken up.

That is important. I am sure Mr. Aylward read the Accounting Officer's response, which is damning. It is of concern that this is happening.

We know the difficulties Mr. Aylward faced at the time in terms of oversight. However, had he completed the historic deal on annualised hours for prison officers before the failure in the system changeover, would the system have been capable of doing the job? If it were reinstalled, would it be capable of carrying out the remainder of the work?

Mr. Aylward

A refined version will in the fullness of time be adopted. I do not want to get into mutual recrimination but my advice is that there is a track record of correspondence from early April 2004 between ourselves and our colleagues in CMOD about the problems we were experiencing in implementation. A lot of help was given by CMOD but some of this required the generation of 30 special reports to help adapt the system to specific needs. These reports issued in April 2004, six months after the Prison Service went live with the system. Seven reports were designed specifically for use by it.

I want to touch on one of the problems we experienced that reduced confidence in the system. The elephant in the corner was sick leave. When our staff tried to get monthly reports on the number who were off sick from a prison in any particular month, the system would not pick up anyone whose sick leave had started before or ended after that calendar month. Therefore, we were not getting a true picture. While our CMOD colleagues devised an answer, this came too late and confidence was undermined. We needed to retain the confidence and support of our governors and clerks who are vital to our operation, but they lost faith in the system. They wanted to stay with a tried and tested system which, although flawed, was accurate and had their confidence. We felt as an organisation that we had to stop because we had a bigger fight on our hands and everybody was working around the clock to try to swing the annualised hours system referred to by Deputy Dennehy. In strategy terms, that was my first priority at the time. Our response has been vindicated by the outcome. We have devised a fairer system which will go to the heart of the sick leave system and the overtime addiction that continued until recently. If our colleagues consult their records — we can help them to do so — they may piece together a different picture.

Reference was made to offers of assistance which were not taken up. Our records suggest the offer was immediately accepted. A meeting was arranged at Prison Service headquarters but, shortly before that meeting was due to take place, CMOD had to cancel it because of other pressures. I believe CMOD has achieved a lot as an organisation. It has managed to deliver this system to 31 users. We were the 32nd and it did not work out for us. I do not want to suggest CMOD did not do a lot for us. It did but it was unable to deliver a solution for our difficulty at the time.

Deputy Dennehy

It states it was willing to do a lot more but its offer was not taken up. Any exchange of letters made at Mr. Aylward's level may be helpful.

Mr. Aylward

I shall try.

Deputy Dennehy

We have a written reaction from the Department of Finance which has to be stood over. There cannot be a situation where a report is sent to us which states this or that was not done but it is then claimed letters can be exchanged. The report was damning. Staff training was curtailed during the year due to overtime restrictions. I am worried that training for half a day was provided for each clerk by key functional users. That is little training for a complicated system. People are computer-literate to varying degrees. Half a day's training was given for what seems to be a very complicated system.

Deputy Deasy suggested that there was a lack of willingness to run the system. Deputy Curran agreed, and asked whether it highlighted work practices. Mr. Aylward must defend what is happening. Outside what he has outlined, was there a reluctance and an unwillingness to make it work? I am surprised that just half a day's training was given on such a complicated new system. Agencies such as the Courts Service, Land Registry, Legal Aid Board and head offices of Departments, where there was no conflict or struggle with overtime or conflict, have made this system work. If the Prison Service wanted to make it work, more than half a day's training would have been required.

Mr. Aylward

I have spent more than seven years of my life involved in different capacities with the prisons. Despite the impression that people have of the prison system, I have found its employees willing to try new work practices. However, if an innovation did not work, and the existing system was thought to be better, there would be resistance.

Training delivered by our consultants, BearingPoint, to staff at the macro end of the operation, was much more extensive than half a day. The training provided to the clerks in the prisons was shorter but it was based on a manual designed by Prison Service members and BearingPoint. That half-day's training included how to input sick leave, print letters and view sick leave reports. The team members who delivered that training to the clerks did not disconnect afterwards. Substantial support was offered after the system went live, including a help desk. In hindsight it can be argued that further and more effective training and support might have made this system more acceptable but as I outlined, no amount of training could fix the system's problems. An example is the fact that it would not process a person's sick leave if it had commenced the previous month. These problems with the product, not a lack of training, undermined user confidence. The management information available from the new system was not comparable to that available from the previous system. That was an unusual situation. In a pressured business, which any prison system is, and in a Titanic industrial relations struggle, if one is told a system is not working, and one has a functioning alternative, one makes a pragmatic decision. That is what happened.

Deputy Dennehy

That is a far more logical defence of the situation than to say the committee is penalising or criticising somebody for making a mistake. I am not as concerned about the €500,000 as about the need to have linkage throughout the public service. A surprising number of Accounting Officers tell this committee they could not do something because they did not know what another agency was doing. This impacts on the public purse and is a serious concern for us. If the programme is adjusted, everybody can be linked. You must talk to your shop stewards and resolve the industrial relations issues. The programme can be tweaked to suit any circumstances. I wish Mr. Aylward well with the continued efforts but he must admit that he did not implement the system because of pressure from his situation. The committee is not criticising people for making mistakes. If Mr. Aylward accepts that the failure was because of time constraints or other pressures, so be it, but the prison service must be linked to the system eventually. This applies throughout the service.

Mr. Aylward

I accept everything the Deputy said. I made the point about not blaming people because one questioner asked me to name the people who made this decision. This infers an intention to name and blame. In my stewardship as a civil servant, I encourage people to say when something is wrong. I do not want a culture of blame. The report submitted by the Comptroller and Auditor General and this discussion suggest that this was a system failure and that some aspects of the system could and should have been dealt with better; I accept those criticisms. My colleagues in CMOD have greatly improved the HR system, making it more flexible, and the prison service is open to using it again. The fees we paid may thus be recovered but it is too soon to decide.

I did not mean to suggest that the committee was criticising people on a personal basis. I made the point that as part of the prison service culture I encourage people to take appropriate risks and when things go wrong to admit it, accept it and move on. I do not feel we are being treated unfairly.

Deputy Dennehy

In case you feel that Waterford is the only place with a problem, I, like Deputy Deasy, want extra gardaí for my area. Approximately four years ago the committee recommended and asked that a valuation be carried out of the 18 prisons, and it still has not been done. When can we expect that the valuation will be done? The value of State property must be known. The OPW could help the prison service with this.

Mr. B. Purcell

The Prison Service's estate is not valued in the accounts. We have had preliminary discussions with the OPW but I do not know when we will have an outcome. We will check with the OPW and report to the committee.

Deputy Dennehy

The committee raised this issue three or four years ago. The members of this committee tend to change but the Comptroller and Auditor General may be able to recall. We felt it was essential. When people were selling off bits of hospitals they were getting into trouble. When Mountjoy Prison is sold in a couple of years one would like to know the price one will fetch. The value is important for decision-making in many areas. When a property is used as a hospital or a prison it tends not to be valued and Mr. Purcell was perhaps governed by that.

Mr. B. Purcell

We will contact the OPW and put a letter to the committee in the next week setting out the timeframe in which we will do the valuation.

Deputy Dennehy

Yes, we did not want anybody hiring consultants to value their property, but this was raised approximately three years ago.

Mr. Aylward

I apologise for that. We should have done it. We have taken a fresh look at our assets, driven by the independent prisons board, who asked me how I could stand over Mountjoy Prison, a very valuable site with terrible conditions for prisoners. The board told me to get out of there. That was an example of looking with a fresh eye at our assets.

Another facility, Shanganagh, was immensely valuable but unsuccessful. It was a open centre for young people but they escaped regularly and nothing we did could prevent them. The type of people we were sending there were suitable for early release under supervision in the community so we sold it for a fantastic price to the local authority for social and mixed housing. We will also realise substantial moneys for the taxpayer by selling off the balance of the site, which includes the castle itself and some adjacent buildings, when the current review by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown council is completed. We will get maximum value for it.

We have looked at other properties which are no longer appropriate to own. We put a house in Cavan to tender and received an excellent price for it. We used our resources to refurbish Everton House on the Old Cabra Road and then sold it by tender. It is now the headquarters of AIM which paid a good price for it.

We are focused on this policy but the discipline gained by having a complete register of our values is absent and that is wrong. The new director of the Prison Service has given an undertaking that we will write to this committee within a week setting out the timetable within which that valuation survey will be conducted. If that is not satisfactory, we will address it. I apologise for failing to act on that suggestion earlier.

Deputy Dennehy

Does Mr. Aylward have any intentions for Spike Island in my local harbour? It is a historic centre worth a considerable amount to the State as a potential heritage centre, as well as a prison. Deputy Boyle and I have a vested interest.

Mr. Aylward

We regard Spike Island as our most valuable overseas possession. We are hoping to end its overseas status and build a bridge to it, which would immensely increase its value from every point of view. Work is ongoing in that respect. Timetables have to be drawn up and environmental studies carried out. Mr. Purcell will update the Deputy with the latest plans. It has a long-term future.

Mr. B. Purcell

As Mr. Aylward said, work is proceeding apace on Spike Island. We are carrying out a number of surveys with a view to building a bridge to the island. The Office of Public Works is helping us design a jump-off point for the bridge. We are already working on outline designs and hope to proceed as soon as possible.

Deputy Dennehy

Does the Prison Service intend to keep it as a prison or convert it into a tourist facility?

Mr. B. Purcell

Our intention is to retain and develop the island as a prison.

Deputy Boyle

Given the problems many State agencies are having with computer systems we should have an investigation into the possibility that there has been a delayed reaction to the millennium bug. Mr. Aylward was director general of the Prison Service at the time and would have engaged with the Secretary General of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Would it be fair to suggest he must have had to voice concerns that the system was being imposed on the Prison Service, without a proper level of consultation?

Mr. Aylward

That was not a major preoccupation of mine because I was focused on the big picture. This involved trying to resolve a damaging staffing issue and to manage an old system that had physically broken down under the pressures of coping with modern young criminals. The computer system was dealt with by personnel and our technical sections. It did not form part of any dialogue between me and the Accounting Officer, the Secretary General of the Department. We were in constant dialogue about issues of more pressing concern than the adoption of a new technical system.

Deputy Boyle

Having listened to various questions and responses a recurring explanation for the difficulties seem to be the variations in work practices concerning overtime and sick leave. Is it true to say there are constants in the Prison Service that do not exist in other State agencies, such as the fact that staff turnover is lower?

Mr. Aylward

In common with members of the Garda Síochána and the Army, prison officers tend to make the Prison Service their life career but they retire earlier than most. There is stability in the organisation. Therefore, while our colleagues in the Prison Officers' Association complain about how tough a job it is, they do not generally leave.

The other constant in the Prison Service relates to sick leave. People in the public service generally have low levels of sick leave. The occupation of prison officer is a pressurised one. People in an office do not usually sustain injuries but prison officers deal with tough guys and if they are unwell they might not be able to face up to the tense situation that exists in a prison. Sick leave was a much bigger issue. It led to what are known as recalls, which featured much more in the Prison Service than any other employment. Until this new agreement was brokered by my successor each prison had a set of agreed postings of where staff would be. If a man was sick the union insisted his post be manned by someone else. Management had limited powers to strip a post. Officers had to be recalled very quickly. It is a costly exercise and is almost unique in such an organisation. It would not happen much in the Garda Síochána and not at all in the Army.

The new system we are rolling out from November means officers will be paid an annualised hours fee, which they will get within certain bands whatever their hours of attendance. Sick leave will be less of an issue in terms of the future HRMS but was at the heart of the problem at that time. We got it wrong. I was looking at the bigger picture elsewhere. As we were addressing a €60 million a year overtime bill, the technical side of the HRMS was not my preoccupation.

Deputy Boyle

Overtime was a factor in HRMS but in the past this committee has heard of problems such as lack of co-operation between prison officers, the Garda Síochána and the Courts Service. From what I hear, the agreement reached on annualised hours may account for people's eight hour or ten hour working day, reducing actual overtime. This will not cover the waste of time involved with prisoners on remand or who have ongoing court cases being taken to a courthouse distant from a prison to find that their cases are rescheduled. Is there any idea on how that type of problem can be overcome?

Mr. Aylward

Both my colleague and I may answer the Deputy's question. One issue is that the longer it takes to return a prisoner to prison, the more money was earned by staff. In essence, officers would not feel any pressure to get back quickly with a prisoner, as they would be entering the overtime range quite quickly. The current situation is different, and the same wage will be paid whatever the time taken to return a prisoner. The pressure will, effectively, be working the other way.

One efficiency that we looked to bring in but which encountered resistance was the use of vans that could hold several prisoners. Instead of a handful of prisoners being moved in a bus or van, cellular vans would enable the placement of many prisoners in an enclosed area, with fewer staff accompanying them. Mr. Purcell may be able to provide an update on this issue. In my time as director general of the Prison Service, we began to invest in those vans but the staff did not want them because they did not want to adopt the working methods involved in using the vans. Mr. Purcell will now speak on this issue and the related topic of remands and court facilities, where a CCTV system is to be piloted in the case of non-critical court appearances.

Mr. B. Purcell

My colleague made a point regarding cellular vans, which is part of the proposal for organisational change agreed with the POA. A dedicated Prison Service escort corps is to be set up as part of the roll-out of the agreement. This corps will have dedicated staff covering escorts for almost the entire system. As part of this process we have acquired a over 30 cellular vehicles, which will aid the corps in ensuring that considerable savings will be made in time and cost.

The committee may be familiar with the concept of cellular vans as opposed to the existing system but I will briefly explain them. Cellular vans can hold up to 14 prisoners. Up until now, escorts would have an officer in charge and a single officer for every prisoner. With cellular vans we can drastically reduce the number of staff that must accompany the escorts, leading to considerable efficiency. The existence of staff exclusively for the work of escorts will also bring about greater efficiency. Some of the issues referred to by the committee came from duplication of work, with staff being present in one courthouse joined by staff from another prison coming to the same courthouse with prisoners for remand, bails or hearings. The synchronisation of the escort system within the prison which will be achieved by the new escort corps will largely eliminate these inefficiencies within the system.

My colleague also mentioned video conferencing, which is almost ready for pilot stage. It is hoped that this pilot will run towards the end of this month or early next month. The issues of remand and bail hearings will be affected if the pilot is successful, as we believe it will be. As the project rolls out, answers to the problems raised by the committee should become evident. I am not arguing that either of these processes is a magic bullet, as they will not necessarily deal with every issue we have, but we are confident that they will go a long way towards achieving a result desired by the committee.

Mr. Aylward

I wish to mention the wonderful co-operation that exists with the Courts Service; for example, Clover Hill courthouse was built by the Prison Service. When one hears newspaper reports of a person charged with a serious offence and remanded at Clover Hill, the prisoner is not brought down the country to appear wherever the remand hearing is but from the cell in Clover Hill down a corridor tunnel to the courthouse and the issue is dealt with in minutes. Considerable savings have been achieved by the use of Clover Hill courthouse since it was built. I would estimate that tens of millions of euro have been saved by the State with that development.

Technology can help achieve even further savings in future, and we have the enthusiastic support and encouragement of the Courts Service in this regard. The project on the side of the Courts Service is being driven by Mrs. Justice Denham of the Supreme Court, an enthusiastic supporter of court technology.

Deputy Boyle

I appreciate those comments, although I am not sure if I would encourage the use of a magic bullet in the Prison Service. I wish to return to the issue of sick leave. It is accepted that an element of sick leave is caused by the stress levels of the job. Has the need for psychological and medical supports been examined by the Department and the Prison Service as a means of spending some money now to make long-term savings?

Mr. B. Purcell

We understand completely that the stressful nature of the job is a contributory factor to problems with sick leave. With regard to the aspects mentioned by the Deputy, we have some systems already in place, such as staff services officers in an employee assistance programme and a staff psychiatrist. We hope that discussions with the Department of Finance on an occupational health unit will also help us in dealing with ongoing sick leave issues. Few organisations with staffing numbers like those of the Prison Service do not have an occupational health unit. We hope that agreement will be reached with the Department of Finance on that issue. This would enable us to help particular staff who have problems, and it would provide a complete approach to the sick leave problem.

Up until now, unfortunately, we have had to focus on issues such as cost. The new systems mentioned by Mr. Aylward agreed with the POA will, we hope, lead to a considerable reduction in the levels of sick leave. We hope to make good progress on the occupational health element.

Deputy Boyle

I have a question on the Vote itself. There is a note on the account on prisons with regard to savings made on prison services. This is related to the closure of the Curragh Prison and Fort Mitchell on Spike Island. Unlike Deputy Dennehy, I am at a loss as to why Spike Island was closed. A series of false economies were made because of that decision. Some €7 million to €8 million was spent renovating Spike Island in the two or three years in advance of the closure decision, and it is one of the few prisons that has in-cell sanitation. The non-use of the prison since closure does not reflect well on the Prison Service or the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. A good education service was discarded because of that decision also. In counting this as a saving, I wish to know the maintenance cost of keeping these two prisons empty. What are the taxpayers paying to keep these prisons vacant?

Mr. Aylward

While my colleague searches for some figures on this matter, I want to make a couple of general points about the closure of the facility on Spike Island. The in-cell sanitation described by Deputy Boyle consists of a toilet and a sink or wash-hand basin in rooms shared by four to five boys, usually young boys. It is a primitive enough arrangement.

Deputy Boyle

Does Mr. Aylward think people in the prison——

Mr. Aylward

I would not be proud of it, to be candid.

Deputy Boyle

There could have been one person per cell. There was——

Mr. Aylward

If we had only one person per cell, we would have a very small number of prisoners on Spike Island.

Deputy Boyle

There is none there at present.

Mr. Aylward

There are multiple uses. We have moved away from overcrowded cells. In general, we have much better accommodation throughout the system. While we had an excellent education service in a well-built or restored building on Spike Island, we would not characterise the accommodation for the prisoners as being in any way close to ideal. Because it is an island, the costs associated with the operation of the Spike Island facility included a high figure for a ferry, which was necessary. One could not get as much as a loaf of bread to the island without the additional cost of using the ferry. The last time I checked, the cost was heading rapidly towards €1 million per annum. It was a very expensive item.

However, we are not writing off Spike Island. We hope to make it the centre of imprisonment in the south of Ireland by building a bridge to it and by developing a dedicated prison facility which will be closer to modern needs and requirements. I must defer to my colleague on the maintenance costs of the prison, but I do not think they are very high. It is a stone structure and was a Naval Service store and fort for a long time. Hence, day-to-day maintenance costs are not very high. Perhaps I can defer to my colleagues from the Prison Service to tell the committee a little more about it.

Mr. B. Purcell

The maintenance costs are approximately €30,000 per month but I can clarify the figure. We have been obliged to retain the ferry which had been used to transport staff, visitors and prisoners. We were obliged to keep it going, albeit at a reduced cost. We still need that ferry for access to the island. As I mentioned earlier, our plans with regard to the ongoing development of the island still stand. Obviously, we need access to the island for ourselves and for various engineers and architects etc. with regard to the various things that must be done to prepare for the new development. Hence, we must retain the ferry.

The cost of the ferry and security for the island comes to approximately €30,000 per month. I can return to the committee with the exact figures if it wishes. However, as I stated, a considerable element of the cost would be required in any event to facilitate the actions required to develop the island and to ensure we retain it as a prison. However, it will be as a prison with modern facilities designed, as Mr. Aylward has observed, to help us move towards our aim of having, by and large, single cell occupancy within the system. This is what we and prison experts want and I am sure the members of the committees will agree it is the way forward.

Deputy Boyle

The note refers to a saving of approximately €2.5 million between the two prisons. Mr. Brian Purcell mentioned the reduced costs for the ferry. What are the other savings which have been made between both prisons?

Mr. B. Purcell

Does the Deputy mean what were the savings or how were they achieved?

Deputy Boyle

What were the savings? It talks about €2.5 million.

Mr. B. Purcell

There was a considerable saving on overtime because we closed them down. We redeployed staff elsewhere, which had an effect on the overtime cuts in the other prisons to which they went. Earlier, when I was responding to Deputy Deasy's query I mentioned that in 2004, one of our big issues was reducing the overtime bill from approximately €60 million to something more manageable. The redeployment of the staff helped to do so in the prisons to which they went. In addition, there were obvious savings in respect of the various ongoing services required to run an operational prison such as victualling, fuel etc. Hence, savings were also achieved in that regard. That accounts for where we made the savings.

Deputy Boyle

I have a final question on the future of the prison on Spike Island. The Prison Service has a plan for a bridge, probably from Ringaskiddy, which is the nearest point to the island. When one considers the design, planning, construction and redevelopment of the prison site itself, is it not unlikely this will happen before 2010?

Mr. B. Purcell

Yes. It is a considerable project, in terms of both the bridge and the development itself. I think the Deputy's estimate of 2010 is more or less close to the mark in terms of design and actual construction.

Chairman

I have a few questions on Vote 19. I refer to paragraph 12, the notes on miscellaneous items. The sixth note refers to an ex gratia payment amounting to approximately €361,000 made in respect of a non-statutory Garda station legal advice scheme. What is the scheme and why is it ex gratia?

Mr. Aylward

I must check, but I assume it is attendance by solicitors on people who are being detained in a Garda station. It is outside the normal criminal legal aid scheme but there are situations in which it is preferable for people to have a solicitor with them when being questioned or when assisting the gardaí with their inquiries. I am advised that it is not part of the formal legal aid board's scheme but is a non-statutory scheme to assist people who are in difficulties and who may need legal support while in Garda custody.

Chairman

I wonder about its viability as a non-statutory scheme.

Mr. Aylward

I take the point and we will remit a note to the committee in greater detail than I am able to provide on the spot.

Chairman

The eighth note refers to a sum of €76,350 which was paid to the Revenue Commissioners with interest and penalties, for not paying VAT. How did that occur?

Mr. Aylward

This is the result of human error and a misunderstanding by us when we were paying non-Irish EU suppliers. There was a VAT liability, of which the staff were unaware. It involved a small number of invoices from foreign suppliers where the supplier did not invoice us for VAT. However, there was a VAT liability because the Revenue Commissioners let nothing go when a transaction occurs within the State. So, we slipped and acknowledged our error. We had to make amends and pay the fee, as does anyone who fails to pay VAT.

Chairman

The next note concerns a sum of €135,000 which was paid in respect of settlements and costs in two clerical abuse cases which occurred in the late 1970s.

Mr. Aylward

I am familiar with this item. It relates to two cases of young people who were under the supervision of the probation and welfare service. While under its supervision, the probation and welfare service had consented to some interaction between them and two people who, tragically, turned out to be abusers. While the probation service was an innocent party in this matter, the legal advice was that there was a liability, as a duty of care had not been fully met. On legal advice, settlements were made in both cases.

Chairman

Were there two abusers or two victims?

Mr. Aylward

I stand corrected. I should not have ad-libbed. It was two victims and one abuser. Sadly, the trust of the Probation Service and the young people concerned was abused in that instance and I believe we did the right thing in making the settlement, again on legal advice.

Chairman

Heading No. 14 on page 131 deals with commissions and inquiries such as the Morris and Bar tribunals, the Nally Group inquiry, the Intoxicating Liquor Commission, the Criminal Injuries Compensation tribunal and referendum costs. Could Mr. Aylward comment briefly on each of these tribunals and commissions and indicate where the costs are going?

Mr. Aylward

The costs for these committees of inquiry and commissions fall under a number of headings. There are administrative costs associated with the buildings in which these tribunals have been holding their hearings. These costs are rent and fittings and the use of courtroom furniture in some instances. There is support staff and in each case, there is the chairperson of the tribunal. There are also the legal costs of the people who advise the tribunal itself, where there is a tribunal or inquiry. The chairperson in each instance, generally at certain intervals — I think they are quarterly intervals — awards costs. It is an interesting and significant feature of the award by the chairperson of costs to various witnesses and legal teams that they only award costs where it is the judgment of the chairperson that the witness has co-operated with the inquiry. They can and do decline to award costs in instances where they feel they have not elicited appropriate and sufficient co-operation from the witnesses in these tribunals.

It is also fair to say that a decision was taken by the Government in recent times to control the legal costs accruing to the State arising from these tribunals and that there would be a tighter rein on the legal costs — the per diem fees that would be charged by the people on the State’s legal team — in future tribunals.

Chairman

There was over €15 million paid in respect of the Morris tribunal up to December 2004. Could Mr. Aylward tell us whether there are outstanding costs? What is in the estimate for this year?

Mr. Aylward

I am advised there will be some further legal costs at the very end of the tribunal's work but it has been paying as it goes to a substantial extent. When one looks at the figures and the length of time these inquiries take, it does stand out.

Chairman

What is the state of play with the Barr tribunal?

Mr. Aylward

The Chairman of that tribunal is completing his report and the burn rate in terms of money would be very low at this stage. He has completed all his hearings, all his submissions have been heard and he is writing up his report. He has a very small support staff and costs are very low at this juncture.

Chairman

The National Irish Investment Bank inquiry has cost just under €6 million to date.

Mr. Aylward

A very important thing to record about this inquiry is the fact that there has been a complete recovery of all its costs.

Chairman

Are they the costs to the State or to the Department?

Mr. Aylward

They are the costs to the State. We received a full cheque from the bank and every penny was extracted.

Chairman

Was that in 2005 or is it in the appropriations-in-aid for 2004?

Mr. James Martin

It was in 2005.

Deputy Curran

I have a minor question which refers to Vote 21. Are all the Votes open at this stage?

Chairman

Yes.

Deputy Curran

Mr. Aylward spoke earlier about this new financial management accounting system. Is it just for the Department or is it for the Prison Service and the whole lot?

Mr. Aylward

It is not just for the Department and its agencies. It is also been used in a practical way for the benefit of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. Unusually, we are providing the financial services centre for Departments other than our own. We are also taking care of the Land Registry, the ports sector, the Prison Service and the Garda Síochána.

Deputy Curran

At the bottom of page 152, heading 14 — stocks — six prisons whose stock the Department has accounted for because they are on a computerised system are listed but there are 16 or 17 locations.

Mr. Aylward

We are rolling out the system and the stock controls to the other prisons in sequence and this work is ongoing.

Deputy Curran

From the point of view of these set of accounts, were stock figures produced at year end for the ten or 11 other facilities?

Mr. Aylward

A manual system is maintained, which I would regard as an unreliable and incomplete record, which is why it is a priority to roll this out.

Deputy Curran

Is it linked into the Department's new €15 million system?

Mr. Aylward

It is and on a day when we pore over a failure to adopt a new system, we should record that this system — I will not whistle past the graveyard — is up and running well. At the beginning of our discussion with the committee, I flagged that we put something into it which has worked out very well, which is that we received independent advice for a very modest sum as to how it was being rolled out by the main contractor. For a fraction of the total cost of the project, we had real experts acting as our in-house monitors and advisers and tracking this.

This project has run well for us to the extent that we have been able to sell it to other Departments. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is in the market for further financial service provision for other Departments — paying their salaries and taking care of payments they must make. We think we have created a very good platform in Killarney, both with the staff, where there have been good staff retention and high quality people, and a robust financial management system. Our system is very large because we were paying 12,000 gardaí and 3,500 prison officers. We found that we were able to extend to paying more people with this new system. We have now taken over that function. I attended the signing ceremony a few months ago with our colleagues in the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.

Deputy Curran

The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform did not have any closing stock. Effectively, it did not know what was in these prisons and would have found it difficult to put together statistics on how much bedding or televisions it bought or undertake correlations between various prisons.

Mr. Aylward

The Deputy is correct. This is the first year that stock figures have been given for the prison system, which is astonishing.

Deputy Curran

I am looking forward to Mr. Aylward's appearance before the committee next year.

Mr. Aylward

I look forward to this prospect as well but I might be back sooner than next year. It is fine if I am held to that.

Deputy Curran

Mr. Aylward mentioned six of the prisons that are tied into it. Is it planned to include the remaining prisons during the course of the current year?

Mr. Aylward

I will be careful about this. The best thing I could say is that I do not believe we will get all the remaining prisons done this year but I would like to send a note to the clerk to the committee and give an update on what is projected in terms of the roll-out of this so that we end up with a complete stock record for every institution up on the computer and this stock record will be there annually as soon as possible.

Deputy Curran

This aspect of management is just as important as the first aspect we started on, which was managing people. It is encouraging on a day when Mr. Aylward might have felt that people on this side were critical of the first system — the HRMS. From what we have seen here, it is unacceptable that the likes of stock cannot be accurately produced these days and the sooner we know where the Department is going with this, the better. I am glad to see, from Mr. Aylward's own admission, that it seems to be operating efficiently and effectively.

Mr. Aylward

I must acknowledge that it was this committee that first flagged this issue as far as I was concerned. We have responded, are part of the way there and will inform the committee as to our intentions on completion of the process. This is the benefit of parliamentary scrutiny. That lacuna was flagged here and we have responded.

Mr. J. Purcell

To pick up on that point, over the years, the format and information in the Appropriation Accounts have been improved, although some Departments have been slower than others in achieving the desired state. Unfortunately, prisons were among those that were slower, as was the Department of Defence. These are typically organisations that might have a fair number of capital assets and a substantial amount of stock. It has been slow but we are getting there in these areas. Regarding the stock position and determining the value of our property assets, I can subscribe to the Accounting Officer's statement.

I will repeat something I have said to the committee a number of times, namely, that I am not in the business of trying to give any succour to a risk-averse culture but it is important to reiterate the Accounting Officer's comment in respect of the taking of appropriate risks. I view such matters not as being wise after the event but as looking back and asking whether what was done was reasonable at the time, whether it was avoidable and whether we can learn lessons for the future by drawing attention to particular deficiencies and shortcomings.

In this particular case there were shortcomings. It has been a good learning exercise and, in ballpark terms, has not been the most expensive. It would have been possible to implement it in the Prison Service with the proper level of commitment. Mistakes were made, some of which have been mentioned. An understandable mistake was taking the eye off the ball in the context of bigger issues. There must always be priorities in Departments. It is a feature of management. If the Accounting Officer had concentrated on this to the detriment of larger issues, it would not have been right.

Concerning Mr. Ring's statement on databases, what is meant is a repository of facts or data, to be more precise. There are four main suppliers of standard software in this area. Ultimately, it depends on how one organises the data, as the inputting of data is not really a problem. It also depends on how one accesses and extracts the data required. After examining the issue and taking into account its merits and the Accounting Officer's comments in both written communication and what has been said today, it seems the report writing element was put on hold until implementation took place, as recorded in the submission. The consultants, the implementing parties in this case, did not include report writing training during the main implementation in any agency. The rationale the consultants offered at the time was that they felt it was best for agencies to live with the system and get a feel for its use before sending people for training in report writing. Since report writing and extraction of information were the most important parts of the exercise, it needed to be dealt with up front.

What leads me to the opinion that this could have been implemented in the service had it been properly organised is that, at the time, in March 2004, and on the basis of correspondence I have seen, HRMS was being used in certain prisons, the old system and HRMS were being used in some other prisons and the old system, DataEase, was being used in yet other prisons. This suggests it could have been done. However, it is water under the bridge and I do not want to re-emphasise too many of the deficiencies. As the Accounting Officer said, we may one day see the Prison Service find its way towards using HRMS mark 2, as it were, and all will not be lost. I have a certain background in computer systems and analysis and one can never underestimate overcoming resistance to changing from what is familiar. The people operating this system at that level in the service should not be forgotten. Perhaps this is another lesson to be learned.

Chairman

May we publish Mr. Aylward's opening statement?

Mr. Aylward

Absolutely.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Aylward and the officials from the Irish Prison Service, the Department of Finance and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

The witnesses withdrew.

Chairman

Is there any other business? Is it agreed to note Vote 21 and dispose of chapter 6.1? Agreed. At our next meeting we will address the 2004 annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts — Vote 30, Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, chapter 11.1, MediaLab Europe.

The committee adjourned at 2.15 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Thursday, 13 October 2005.