Ms Karen Erwin:

As Ms Hall adverted to earlier, there is an ongoing review about what exactly happened. We have an independent non-Irish person looking at this. We were due to meet him tomorrow but that meeting had to be cancelled. He has gone back into the files of the accountants and the auditors and it is only when that is done that one can being to wonder about what happened, what might have happened and what should have happened and whether there was a gap in what was supposed to be done or not. At the minute, we do not have that information. We do not have direct access to those files. The review will take place and we hope it will finish early in 2013. We will then have a look at that and see what are the results.

We do not have detailed results which show that an audit was carried out incorrectly.

Deputy Anthony Lawlor has asked why we do not support joint audits. The main reason is the cost involved in having two people audit the same company. There is potential for a lack of clarity about responsibilities whereby two audits might fail to dovetail fully, creating a crack through which something might fall through. There is also potential for a duplication of work. The expense of having two sets of auditors would be borne by the company.