Irish Rail Lacks Confidence in Indra for €30 Million IT System, Reviews Options

Irish Rail lacks confidence in contractor Indra to deliver a long-delayed IT system, the Traffic Management System (TMS), on which €30 million has already been spent. Irish Rail chief executive Mary Considine informed an Oireachtas committee that the company is reviewing its options and will present a recommendation to its board this month.

Six deadlines for the TMS delivery have been missed. In May, Irish Rail wrote down €50 million from its investment in a new national train control centre due to TMS development concerns. The latest software version delivered by Indra in April failed testing, indicating further major delays and an unplanned software release are inevitable. The TMS is two years past its original commissioning date, and Indra still lacks a deployable product.

Committee chairman Michael Murphy highlighted that risks to the TMS were identified as early as 2022, yet expenditure continued to rise. He noted that the software version shown during procurement was not the one ultimately proposed. Paul Hendrick, Irish Rail director of capital investments, stated that the €150 million budget for the overall national train control centre project, including TMS, was expected to be breached by tens of millions, potentially reaching €205 million. Considine confirmed Irish Rail is still under contract with Indra but is exploring all options after Indra failed to deliver a product by April that would meet technical readiness by July.