John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The HEA has failed to instil that culture of audit and accountability in WIT over a ten year period. The HEA audit committee signed off on the accounts and the WIT governing body signed off on the accounts. The only person to raise it was Mr. McFeely. He was here last week. It surprises me that the HEA did not uncover some of the difficulties in WIT during the course of the past ten years. You have referred to accountability and transparency and a culture of audit and so on but that did not exist in WIT. We refer to the office of the president of WIT as part of this spend. I understand the figures used last week were between €30,000 and €165,000.

Surely, that was a line in the accounts that would have startled anyone with an eye for that kind of expenditure.