Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 22 January 2015

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statements of the Higher Education Authority 2013
General Report No. 85 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Accountability and Governance on the National College of Art and Design

10:00 am

Photo of John DeasyJohn Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The problem we have here, and perhaps the Chairman touched on it, is that we have a lack of information. We have vacuum on top of vacuum. Nobody seems to know what is going on in these institutions. This is not new. This is an age old thing. Mr. Boland is at the helm for 11 years and the lessons should have been learned a long time ago with regard to Waterford. I am from Waterford and I like wearing the jersey but there comes a point where one has to ask some questions about how places are being run, whether they are in one's constituency or not. I get the strong impression that the two entities involved in this merger did not have a clue as to what was going on. There was form here with regard to governance, as the Chairman said, and there should have been a heightened sense of activity or scrutiny when it came to the merger process. The mistake that has been made, to a certain extent, in my opinion, is that it is now being dished off to Mr. Kelly. Good luck to him with his work. This should have resided with both organisations at a very senior level until a resolution or solution to this had been put together. Once again it is being dished off and reports forthcoming. I am afraid that history will repeat itself in about two or three years and we will be back in here, although there may be different personnel dealing with it then.

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