Mr. Brendan Rogers:

I am familiar with Uganda as I lived and worked there. I visited the country many times. I was in Uganda immediately after the fraud was discovered. We work in Karamoja which is a very difficult inhospitable place and where, up a few years ago, it was not possible to walk around without an armed guard. The embassy staff, to their great credit, have put an enormous effort into working on the ground, travelling out there and setting up an office to ensure that all of the Irish taxpayers' euro are spent correctly. There was a gap at the very top because they believed the money was safe in the central bank of Uganda because the IMF and the World Bank told them so. The fiduciary risk assessment said the money was safe. There was certainly a gap, as the Secretary General stated, in terms of the skills sets that we bring to the game. Public financial management is an area that we must strengthen. We must strengthen the skills sets and the qualifications of the people we have at our disposal. That was quite clear to me when I went out there.