Irish Rail writes down €50M after train IT project goes off the rails

Irish Rail writes down €50M after train IT project goes off the rails

Jump to main content

REG AD

Public sector

Irish Rail writes down €50M after train IT project goes off the rails State-owned operator loses confidence in delayed traffic management system as politicians compare Ireland’s latest public-sector IT fiasco to 'Groundhog Day'

Carly Page Carly Page

Published fri 22 May 2026 // 11:34 UTC

Irish Rail has quietly written off €50 million on a troubled train traffic management system that now appears headed for the same graveyard as many ambitious public-sector IT projects before it.The State-owned rail operator no longer has confidence the new Traffic Management System can be rolled out across Ireland’s rail network as originally planned, according to reporting by The Irish Times. The system was supposed to modernize how train movements are managed nationwide as part of the wider National Train Control Centre project.Instead, the project has become the latest addition to Ireland’s increasingly crowded museum of expensive state IT mishaps.

REG AD

Irish Rail has now reportedly reduced the carrying value of the asset by €50 million in its 2025 accounts, after years of delays, technical concerns, and apparent doubts over whether contractor Indra can deliver a workable system at all.

REG AD

The system was initially expected to cost less than €20 million and launch last year, before the usual gravitational forces affecting large public sector IT projects took hold. MORE CONTEXT Google Cloud suspended major customer Railway.com without cause, causing outage

Indra rides off with £1.96B Transport for London ticketing deal as Oyster heads for back-office overhaul

The latest innovation in UK public transport: Schrödinger's trains

Taiwan cops say student's radio kit brought bullet trains to a standstill

The controversy quickly landed before Ireland’s Public Accounts Committee, where lawmakers sounded distinctly unsurprised to discover another large public-sector technology project eating tens of millions of euros.John Brady, chair of Ireland’s Public Accounts Committee, called the situation “quite simply unbelievable” and questioned how the project had been allowed to “slowly drift, with more and more public money being spent every single day.”Brady also warned the failure could have broader implications for Ireland’s rail expansion plans, raising “massive questions about the governance, ministerial oversight and financial control in place on the project.”Aiden Farrelly, an Irish Social Democrats politician who sits on the PAC, said the debacle created “a growing sense of Groundhog Day” around Irish public sector IT projects.“While more information has yet to emerge about this specific case, it’s fair to conclude that, when it comes to IT projects, the State simply can’t manage them,” Farrelly said in a statement.Farrelly also called for greater involvement from Ireland’s Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, arguing the agency should play a more hands-on role overseeing major state technology projects rather than leaving accountability entirely to individual public bodies.Meanwhile, Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty called the writedown a “national scandal” and accused the government of treating taxpayer money “as if it were Monopoly money” during a heated Dáil exchange.

REG AD

The Public Accounts Committee is now expected to summon Irish Rail, the National Transport Authority, and government officials for further questioning over the potential collapse of the project.The timing is awkward for Ireland’s broader rail expansion ambitions, which already face mounting scrutiny over costs, delays, and delivery risks across projects including MetroLink, DART+, and the perpetually delayed Navan rail line.®

irish rail ireland indra traffic management system public sector

REG AD

Ucell and ZTE complete large-scale deployment of AI‑Powered green network solution in Uzbekistan

Network-wide rollout boosts energy efficiency by 10.6%, cutting carbon emissions and operational costs without compromising user experience

SaaS

The SaaS-pocalypse can wait, Salesforce still has customers where it wants them

AI coding agents may make software cheaper to build, but switching off major platforms remains expensive, risky, and deeply annoying

ZTE Day Indonesia 2026 strengthens AI innovation and digital infrastructure collaboration to accelerate Indonesia's digital transformation

The annual tech showcase highlights next-gen AI, cloud, and future-ready ICT solutions while uniting ecosystem partners to build the foundation for the nation's AI era

Personal Tech

HP customer claims firmware update shoved printer off support cliff

Internal notes point to cloud connectivity woes for older OfficeJets, though company denies systemic issue

Columnists

Utah tells porn sites to take the P out of VPNs, and it's their fault that they can't

Governments can't touch VPNs technically or commercially. The mess they'll make if they try will be off the scale

Systems

EU's digital sovereignty boo-boo may be the best thing to ever happen to the project

DIY or die. Just don't let the CIA buy it

MOST POPULAR

Security America's top cyber-defense agency left a GitHub repo open with passwords, keys, tokens – and incredibly obvious filenames Systems Intel's CEO reveals early hiring challenges as bankruptcy concerns deterred top talent