Mr. Joe O'Flynn:

The record will show that we wrote to the Comptroller and Auditor General asking him to conduct this inquiry into the matter before the Committee of Public Accounts made the same request. The reason we made a request was that we wanted to act in good faith with a view to assisting everybody present in understanding what took place. I have said already that we were every bit as frustrated and concerned as the Chairman in relation to questions that arose over the use of public money. We have genuinely gone out of our way to try to explain, in so far as we possibly can, what went on here. Regrettably, the truth of the matter, as confirmed by the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, is that this should never have happened in the first instance and would not have happened in the first instance if the people who were giving over the money had put proper procedures and protocols in place. We would not be sitting here today if that had happened in the first instance.