Mr. Tony O'Brien:

They raise charitable funds on their own account in the way with which we are familiar. I have two separate answers to that question. Having had the discussions I have had with the officials available to me now, do I think the decisions they took and the considerations they made at the time were reasonable steps? By and large, I think they were. Clearly, if one or other of those officials had reached a different view at that time and triggered the internal audit, this might all have come to a head much sooner. I do not know when these practices that are detailed in the internal audit started. I cannot answer that question.

In response to an earlier question, I have absolutely no intention of trying to get an internal audit back to 2005. I see no useful product in that. It would be a poor use of the resources available to me, which are better deployed considering other agencies at this stage. Maybe we could have done something differently earlier, had a different view been formed. So far, however, it seems to me that the views that were formed were not unreasonable in the circumstances and at the time when they of course did not have access to the information that we all have now. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but it only comes in 20/20 vision. Foresight is a little more difficult.