Computer consultancy scandal won't go away

This week, just hours after the Comptroller and Auditor General's (C&AG) report on the PPARS scandal had been published, the consultancy firm, Deloitte and Touche, issued their first statement on the affair. This fiasco has already cost the public €131 million and the report ran to 115 pages.

Deloitte and Touche is the biggest single winner in the affair, taking over €37 million in costs and fees out of the total, yet the only comment the company has made on the whole thing ran to just a few lines, lines that left no one any wiser. After welcoming the report and stating a few obvious facts, the comment reads:

"In the three years to October 2005, Deloitte deployed an appropriate and agreed level of resource in response to the client's requirements and also advised the client on optimising the use of its internal resources." That is more or less that. From a company which charged the taxpayer nearly €2,000 per day for every consultant it had working on the project (when VAT and expenses are taken into account) it is a pretty remarkable stance to take. No explanation whatsoever about how the whole thing went so disastrously wrong from the company who gained most by it.

But then, the management of the project was a disaster from a very early stage. With an initial estimated cost of just €9 million in 1998, PPARS grew like the blob from outer space to such an extent that, by July of last year, it was estimated that it would cost €230 million, nearly 25 times the original estimate. If it had been allowed to go on, just like the Blob, it would have taken over the whole country.

But then, Deloitte and Touche had no axe hanging over them to make them get the whole thing done on time. Their agreement with the project management team was to provide time and services only: it didn't matter how long the whole thing dragged out for the 114 people they had working on PPARS at various times up until the massive waste of public money was stopped this year – they would still be paid. (By the way the expenses averaged around €125 per consultant per day). The C&AG finds that the manner in which external consultants in general were appointed to the project (Deloitte are not by a long way the only ones) was unsatisfactory.

All the risk of overruns was being taken by the State, and even then it seems from the C&AG's report that no one could take any decisive action. The project team and directors, made up mostly of CEOs of the then existing health boards, did not have the power to make binding decisions for everyone affected by PPARS. Their committee was too large, some people never "bought in" to the whole concept, and there was even a period when there was a void in the whole decision making process.

Warnings that the whole concept was based on loose finances were ignored. At the outset no one had a clear idea of what functions were required of the system. At one stage the health services were warned that they should have some other outside agency overlooking the work of Deloitte, but that was not acted on. Various other consultants, brought in from time to time to examine the project, failed to identify the huge weaknesses in the whole concept. One example is a report prepared by Hay Management Consultants in February 2002. The C&AG says that their appraisal fell short of a full business case for the project, as it did not provide detailed information on costs and did not identify the resources required, while at the same time strongly recommending that PPARS go ahead.

There are weaknesses involved almost every step of the way, yet no one could or would say Stop. People involved at the coalface of using the system, who voiced concerns that it was not working, were, according to the Irish Nurses' Organisation, bullied and ignored. No one asked the people operating the system how they would like it to work. There was never any serious examination of the feasibility of achieving the transformation promised by the backers of PPARS, indeed disastrous initial tests on the system were ignored and it went on unchecked until Enda Kenny exposed the whole rotten structure at the end of the summer.

Even where it has gone into operation, it has brought little benefits. In some areas it has even led to an increase in the number of staff required to run things like payroll, overtime and the like.

The only good news is that this one is not going to go away. The Public Accounts Committee is to examine the issue in the new year, and we can look forward to those who profited from the fiasco being dragged into the light. Some of them will be no strangers to controversy. Deloitte and Touche are the direct decendents – by way of various mergers – of the Haughey Boland accountancy firm, used to hide secret payments to Charles Haughey when he was Taoiseach. They haven't gone away you know.

Fergal Keane is a reporter with RTÉ radio's Five Seven Live