Ms Laverne McGuinness:

They are directly employed with us. There are qualified accountants throughout the entirety of the service.

The internal audit report was carried out by a professional accountant and internal auditor, Dr. Geraldine Smith. She has the competencies to carry out the report in this regard. We have an internal audit function. That is only one of the reports carried out. We have an audit plan and an audit committee in place with the directorate. We had an audit committee in place previously with the board. A significant amount of internal audit is systematically carried out year-on-year. We systematically audit our arrangements with the agencies. We have whistleblowing in respect of fraud. We find and detect a number of irregularities or frauds ourselves and the associated reports are published and available under freedom of information legislation. They are published and available on the Internet on an ongoing basis. We have an internal audit function which methodically and systematically reviews these areas as part of our overall internal control process. Furthermore, each senior manager is asked every year to sign an internal control statement. This is to ensure that in our area of work we have in place effective internal controls to ensure that we are protecting the State's money and assets and the public finances.