Almost six years after the contract was signed and with about €31 million already spent, Irish Rail had reached the end of the line. On April 20th, the State-owned train operator received from Indra – the Spanish IT contractor on the project – long-awaited software allowing it to implement the first phase of a system to control the movement of trains across the State’s rail network.
Described by Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien as the “brain of the railway network”, the traffic management system was to integrate signalling, communications and operational systems. However, the project was beset by delays and cost overruns.
Up to that date in April, there had been optimism that the project may have turned a corner, but initial testing of the software had not gone well. Sufficient concerns were raised that Irish Rail doubted the system would actually work.
The matter was escalated to the board of Irish Rail, which was preparing to sign off on the company’s accounts for 2025.
RM Block
The board had previously discussed recording a post-balance-sheet event – accountancy speak for a material financial transaction that occurs after a reporting period – concerning the system. On May 6th the board approved an impairment – essentially a financial hit to the company.
On May 18th the board approved the accounts and sent them to the Department of Transport. Inside, a note revealed details of an “asset impairment”.
A political bomb had been primed.
The note said Irish Rail, informed by the test results to date, “does not have confidence that the asset in the current state can be deployed for use on the network”.
The company had consequently written down the value of the asset by €50 million. Three days later, The Irish Times reported details of the writedown.
The revelations caused ructions at the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, which happened to be meeting that morning. The committee had already been keeping an eye on spending on this and other IT projects. Members of the committee were furious. Committee chairman John Brady, the Sinn Féin TD for Wicklow, described the money loss on the system as “a national scandal”.
Starting next week Oireachtas committees will begin investigations into how this happened.
Both Irish Rail and the National Transport Authority (NTA), the State agency responsible for developing public transport, will face questions on the IT system and whether a €50 million investment has been lost for good.
In the months before the writedown, concern had been deepening among Irish Rail directors about the system.
The software delivered in April was to be used on the Dublin-Rosslare rail line – the first of eight phases that would eventually see the system rolled out across the entire national rail network.
But in February the board had been told it would be January 2027 at the earliest, and possibly the summer of 2027, before the first element would actually be operational.
[ Irish Rail to scrap new €50m IT system for trainsOpens in new window ]
Official minutes show then Irish Rail chairman Steve Murphy and project director Jason Lacey had concerns about the ability of outside contractor Indra to deliver the remaining seven phases of the project
In March directors heard it was unlikely Indra would deliver the full scope of the system by 2030. An internal Irish Rail assessment suggested that potentially it could be several years after 2030 before the full system would be operational.
The genesis of the project dated back more than a decade.
Almost 12 years to the day before the company received the software for the first commissioning phase of the system from Indra, on April 23rd, 2014 – the board of Irish Rail approved a €500,000 budget for a proposal to update its existing central traffic control system.
Initially the rail company earmarked the new facility for Connolly Station in Dublin, but board minutes state that Dublin City Council opposed the demolition of arches in Sheriff Street to facilitate the development.
The system was to be a subset of an overall national train control centre (NTCC) which, the Irish Rail board was told, was due for completion in 2021.
In August 2018 the board approved a tender process for the new system at an estimated cost of €43 million. This included €28.7 million for the supply and installation of the new TMS system over a four-year period as well as €4.3 million for a separate backup facility and €10 million to pay for maintenance support over 20 years.
In July 2019 the government authorised the NTCC. But the new building was not only to accommodate the control centre for train operations.
Since May 2023 about 100 gardaí have also been based there to operate the Garda Síochána’s communication control centre for the Dublin metropolitan region.
A Dublin regional traffic control centre is also earmarked for the building.
The NTA, in a briefing document for the Public Accounts Committee this week, states that the contract for the design, supply, installation and commissioning of the new system and control equipment was agreed with Indra in 2020.
The document says Indra’s submission “represented the lowest cost tender and was founded upon evidence of a proven product in operational use in Europe”. The contract was awarded for €19.5 million including VAT with a target that the traffic management system would be commissioned by June 2024.
The NTA document says in August 2022 Indra advised Irish Rail of delays of up to 13 months with the system, due mainly to underestimation of level of complexity and issues that arose as a result of staff working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic. The projected 13-month delay was later reduced to five months with a new commissioning date set for November 2024 rather than June 2024.
But another hitch arose.
The NTA document states that in early 2023 delays emerged with the update and upgrade of Indra’s base product for the system (the generic product). Although this was outside the scope of the project, it directly affected progress on the software system and target milestones.
The NTA document says Indra proposed changes to the delivery programme that would effectively see the system’s commissioning date be pushed back to March 2025.
“Indra confirmed that their generic product development was completed in November 2023. However, Iarnród Éireann advised NTA that further delays to the software development programme were materialising and that the March 2025 date was at risk,” the NTA briefing document states.
“During this time Iarnród Éireann were raising concerns that the planned project programme prepared by Indra was unrealistic and did not have any time risk allowance.”
In March 2024, following detailed discussions between Irish Rail and Indra, a revised programme was agreed with a target date ofAugust 2025.
The NTA document says initial software was deployed on April 25th, 2024 but following a partial review by the train company, Indra agreed that a number of functions were missing and testing was incomplete.
It states Irish Rail also identified design requirements not captured in the software and so it was not ready to continue testing or training, resulting in likely further delays.
In November 2024 another revised delivery programme was introduced which saw the project broken into eight commissioning phases with the first element coming into operation in September 2025 with the full rail network covered by May 2027.
The NTA briefing document says the software required for the first commissioning phase was released in early 2025. However, comprehensive testing carried out found that “the software was not mature enough to commence training or commission”.
“Indra’s independent safety assessor also endorsed this view,” the document states.
The first phase was rescheduled to May 2026 and a software release plan was developed by Indra “to close out the open issues”, the document says.
[ Irish Rail’s €50m writedown on IT project a ‘national scandal’, says Sinn FéinOpens in new window ]
The NTA subsequently became more involved and sought for the focus to be solely on the first commissioning stage of the project. Under a scheduled agreed at this point Indra was to release the software for the first commissioning phase by mid-April 2026.
The authority told the Public Accounts Committee this week that initial reports from current testing show a significant volume of test logs have been raised, detailing “errors with the functionality of the software and how it manages the operation of the railway”.
“Based on the nature and volume of test logs it has been determined that another full software release will be needed to address the open issues,” the NTA said.
As a result, there is likely be a further delay in the first phase, it said.
This appears to be the final straw for Irish Rail.
The NTA told The Irish Times it did not believe the overall project was dead. It has commissioned consultants EY to review the procurement and delivery process, to be completed in about three months.
There have been discussions between NTA and Irish Rail over recent weeks about where to go now including potentially bringing in a new contractor to work with Indra.
Irish Rail has, it is understood, essentially lost faith in the Spanish contractor.
The Irish Times contacted Indra a number of times in recent weeks. The company has declined to comment.
