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    IT project to allow bank cards to be used on public transport set to run €41m over budget
    Ireland

    IT project to allow bank cards to be used on public transport set to run €41m over budget


    IT project to allow bank cards to be used on public transport set to run €41m over budget

    https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/05/14/key-it-projects-at-government-departments-and-state-agencies-set-to-run-61m-over-budget/

    Posted by homecinemad

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    47 Comments

    2. ParaMike46 on

      This is just getting ridiculous… and how many years of delay we can expect?

    6. OldVillageNuaGuitar on

      My understanding at one stage was that part of the delay to an upgrade of the ticketing system was related to the need to have more of the National Fares Strategy introduced. But like everything that relates to public transport, there are some political difficulties so that’s been painfully slow. The Fares strategy is supposed to even out some of the quirks of the existing rather ad hoc fares system and make a national system more sensible (and indeed, viable).

      But at the same time, they managed a lot of the Dublin stuff (the new commuter fare zones and the harmonisation that required) but the NTA seem very disinterested in the non-Dublin stuff.

      (Edit: To be clear this is a moan about the delays to implementing the national fares strategy and the disinterest of the NTA in non-Dublin issues, rather than a suggestion that the National Fares Strategy delays is the cause of the cost overrun or other delays to contactless ticketing)

    7. GhostsOfTheRobotTree on

      Dozens of countries are running contactless payments without issue.
      As ever we need to make ours bespoke and overlay complicated for some reason.

    10. Sayek on

      Genuinely do they pose solutions or look for corrective measures to stop this happening in the future? Or do we just leave it to each public body to make the same mistake over and over?

      I feel like this will be a recurring issue for years. Private sector are more than happy to string projects along too and involve more consultations. 

      I can understand how building projects and developments run over budget due to external factors and costs and delays and timing etc. These IT projects are such a black hole for money when in reality it should be possible to map out most of it and get approximate costings, you’ll always run into issues but I don’t know those issues end up costing double of their budget. 

      I feel like the public sector needs an IT hub or something, pay proper wages and at least be able to advise government agencies when working with third parties or call out bullshit in the tender process. Also have these contract actually punish delays and budget overruns. 

    14. stuyboi888 on

      15% over budget for anyone that read past the headline. Yea that sucks but my groceries have definitely gone up much more than 15% in the past 2 years. How long were the projects. What was the Cola set to be for the contract anyways. Are the overtuns because the tender was done poorly and didn’t predict increases in spending. Were things underpriced, was the tender process skewed too heavily towards cost rather than I dunno, being able to show they did the work before in the EU

      Get it done FFS. Was in Spain’s 6th largest city the other day. It had a metro, bus, train from the airport and tap on with bank card. Alicante had it over 10 years ago. Tech centre of the EU my ass

    15. No_Minute_5743 on

      Must be those people in rural comnunties in one off houses again causing all this wasted expenditure on public infrastructure.

    16. Plane-Top-3913 on

      Imagine if Ireland had to actually work for its wealth instead of extracting it from taxes not paid elsewhere, maybe then people would care

    17. IrishLad1002 on

      The temptation to set up a company that purely goes after and abuses public contracts grows by the day. You’d be a millionaire by Christmas and there’s zero chance of you ever being investigated or punished as the government will actively defend you.

    18. TheGalacticApple on

      Don’t worry guys by the time this goes through it will have doubled due to inflation.

    20. Real_Penalty_4317 on

      Who is doing budget review? Just tell whoever submitted the bid though shit

    21. scoopydidit on

      Water is wet. More news at 9.

      But seriously, how do you magically make something go that over budget? In my job, we might spin up a new project that we estimate to be… 1m per year in infrastructure. We do thorough budget analysis and usage planning to verify this. At most, we will probably hit 1.02m per year. And this sort of project would fluctuate with demand so hard to get down accurately. How do you magically make a pretty constant project budget go over by 41m? That’s a huge number over budget. Like… what changed in the original scope that has warranted that?

    22. AdBoring9620 on

      How does it cost 41 million, nevermind run over. An I missing something? A card reader is how much,?

    24. National_Play_6851 on

      From the article: “overall spending was roughly in line with initial projections as underspending on some projects has offset overruns on others.” – that won’t generate the necessary headlines and misguided outrage of course.

    25. BiDiTi on

      If only we ran an inappropriate surplus each year, which could absorb this excess cost in delivering critical infrastructure!!!

    27. Successful-Trash-915 on

      And the local gaa team has a tap and pay option when collecting outside the supermarket. Good old Ireland reinventing the wheel as usual.

    28. jamster126 on

      How is this so difficult to implement? I don’t understand. Dozens of countries have already implemented this.

    29. Specific-Manager-125 on

      A system btw which was launched 12 years ago in London in a far more complex environment than this for a fraction of the cost

      But anyone suprised …No , will there be any consequences ….of course not …maybe a promotion or 2

    30. FloppyTomatoes on

      Why do they over complicate this? I’m living in Germany and you buy the ticket in the providers app (or on the platform), and that’s it. No faffing about with scanners, machines and delaying people getting on. The tickets is not valid until a few mins after your purchase in the app, so you can’t just quickly buy a ticket if you see the inspector approaching.

    32. Entire_Number_9 on

      Lads, quick question, how can I start a company to fulfil government contracts?

    33. TimeToStrike_ on

      I always get confused on these kind of things. Government has a spec, they put it out to tender, companies bid and get the contract, how can they suddenly want more money?

    36. jdogburger on

      Just make it free, oh wait that wouldn’t benefit the tech companies. They need more public funds to build systems to collect even more of our personal data.

    38. Alwaysname on

      Oh for the love for fecking shite. How is this always happening? 😡

      There needs to be a STOP and RESET here. Who is allowing this to happen?? What culture within government is allowing this to happen?? This kind of stuff has been going on for years and it doesn’t seem to be down to any single politician, or party and I’m firmly of the opinion it’s rooted in the Civil Service and the culture and conditions in which they operate. You wouldn’t last a wet weekend in the Corporate world doing this kind of stuff.

    40. 5x0uf5o on

      Surely there’s an off-the-shelf system they could have purchased. Loads of countries have contactless payment.

    42. Strong_Guard3375 on

      Genuine question.. why is Ireland so pathetic at implementing any sort of infrastructure projects?

    46. gav_9000 on

      Was in Georgia the country last week, the capital
      Tbilisi has a metro with tap on for bank cards ….

    47. molymalone on

      This is massively embarrassing for all involved , talk about over complicating.