Information regarding RTÉ's €3.6 million write-down was only "noted briefly" in a report by NewERA for Minister Patrick O'Donovan and was "not flagged as a matter of concern", according to a statement from the Department of Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport.
The comments were in response to RTÉ's statement last night that officials from NewERA had discussed the impairments of €3.6 million as noted in its accounts from 2020 to 2023.
NewERA is part of the National Treasury Management Agency, which provides advice to the Government on its shareholdings in State bodies, including RTÉ, An Post, daa and ESB.
It was confirmed on Wednesday that RTÉ had written down a figure of €3.6 million on a partially failed IT system, which was one of the projects funded from the proceeds of the sale of land at its Dublin site in 2017.
This evening's statement outlines how the minister and his department only received "detailed information" on the project on foot of the minister's request for problematic capital spending projects to all agencies under his remit in March.
A spokesperson for the Department outlined how NewERA provides "commercial and financial advice to ministers" and that items such as impairments are "not unexpected".
In a statement, the spokesperson explained how NewERA provides a report to the minister, and "would raise issues of any significant concern with the Department".
The spokesperson said that both the 2020 and 2021 RTÉ financial statements "included impairment provisions", adding that "RTÉ advised NewERA that the 2020 impairment related to a renegotiation of the ERP project (the IT system project)".
The statement added that the following year they were advised that 2021 impairment related to the "partial write off" of the IT costs.
In this case, however, as the information provided by RTÉ "did not give rise to any concerns", the impairments were not flagged as a "matter of concern" in the NewERA report.
The statement added that the department has "no role" in approval of capital projects in RTÉ, and that it only received detailed information about the write downs in March.
