Mr. Hamilton Goulding:

The situation came about with the fitting of prosthetic devices, seating devices, wheelchairs, et cetera. Purchasing equipment for disabled people is not like buying a pair of shoes; it involves a lot of specialised assessment and modification of the devices themselves. The CRC was spending a lot time doing this with specialised staff in the seating department. Agents would come in selling these devices and effectively used the labour of the CRC to make the assessment and decide which device was being used. A lot of time and effort was made by clinic staff. The transaction would then take place and the agent for the goods would achieve the sale and go away.

Looking at this, we realised that it was strongly related to the core business. It happened that, effectively, we were doing a lot of work and somebody else was making a profit as a result of it. The idea therefore was to let us become an agent for these items and thus get some recompense for the work that was going into it. That is how that business started.

At that time - this was just before the downturn - there was a big turnover of those type of items. There was a large list of people who had been approved by the HSE for getting one of these devices. With the downturn, however, while people had been approved they were then told that although we had approved them we could not go ahead with that sale. The volume of those items being sold and used absolutely plummeted. Just like many a business that was set up in the times of economic prosperity, it bit the dust in a big way.

On a number of occasions at board meetings we summoned in the executive team who, I must say, always impressed me very much. At that time, Mr. Paul Kiely was keeping a weekly or fortnightly eye on it, getting briefings all the time. Cost cutting took place; there were no luxury items and certainly no wastage that I ever saw. Gradually, the market disappeared and the business went into loss. Looking back, we should have wound up that operation much earlier but having risked money from the charity we were still reluctant. This happens when something is going down; when does one stop? We really hated the idea of making a loss for the clinic. I know this got to Mr. Kiely personally, and it got to all of us, that we would hate to preside over a situation where we went into a venture that would not work and we would have to admit it. We let it run a little bit too long and the losses accumulated. Then a deal was finally opened up.

The trouble is that I am not well prepared in terms of accounts and numbers. It is a long time ago and my recollection is not good. I can obviously look into this and find more details for the Deputy. I would be willing to do that except that I have no documentation now. It needs to be resolved. At the last meeting we had it was taken over very much by Mr. Conlan. The last time we looked at it he gave us a briefing on it. He said he was hoping that at the end of the process he was going through that we would get to a situation of nearly balancing any exposure or losses to the clinic.

Things have sort of disappeared into the ether now. I regret to have to say this but I simply do not have, either on paper or in my head, sufficient information to answer the Deputy's questions here today.