Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

The Deputy raises a good point. The danger is that one is always fighting the last war in one's approach to current issues. We try to identify the key risks that arise with regard to any entity we audit and try to put the emphasis on what we see as those key risks. In the period the Deputy speaks of, my recollection is that the expenditure in Waterford Institute of Technology would have been approximately €80 million to €90 million euro per year. We would have focused on the bulk of the spending, on pay areas and so on.

The lesson we have learned from the FÁS experience - and other Deputies made this point - is that there is a question of confidence around public bodies and that we must address that in the audit. That is the reason that since 2009, we have been putting more emphasis in our audit on those areas of propriety, such as travel and subsistence, remuneration and payments in excess of entitlement, an issue we reported on previously with regard to the universities. However, the resource required to bring out the level of detail that has been brought out by Deloitte and Grant Thornton is a level of resource we do not have. One can drill down in considerable detail and generally come back with some concerns.

Sample-based auditing is not going to catch everything. One would hope that it would catch a significant amount and give one enough pointers to where one might need to redirect or refocus attention. The point about Waterford is that in the testing we did in areas like procurement, travel and subsistence over the years, we picked up relatively little because, as I understand it, the issues were specifically confined to the president's office. In general, the institute is well run, with good controls in place. That was our conclusion over the years.