Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

Perhaps I will return to the beginning of the period of the over-expenditure on expenses. From our point of view, there is a cascade of responsibility in the context of ensuring that expenditure is undertaken in an appropriate manner within institutes of technology. The first part of that cascade is the senior management of the relevant institute. The senior management at Waterford Institute of Technology had a responsibility to ensure that the issues were addressed. Following on from that there is the governance of the institute, namely, the audit committee and the governing body. We all agree and accept there was a failure at governance level in respect of the expenses and in the context of the nature of the interaction with the senior executive of the institute. The approach we have adopted places primary responsibility on institutions to ensure they address those issues. A code of practice for the governance of State bodies was not in place when all of this started. However, it was put in place as the expenditure was under way. Clearly, the Department had a direct role in respect of the institute until the transfer of responsibility to the HEA in 2007 or 2008.

The Department has maintained its role and in the meantime it has have been strengthening the nature of governance and setting down clearly the responsibilities of institutions in terms of their internal audit committees, the need for chairpersons to sign off on appropriate expenditure, etc. The Department was not aware of difficulties and challenges in respect of the expenses.

We were not aware of them in the early part of the last decade. The issues the Deputy has referred to relate to the end of the last decade. It was shortly after that - in 2011 - that we became aware of them. We do not monitor local media in various parts of the country. We are not aware that any formal or informal feedback about over-expenditure in the institute was received in the late part of the last decade.