Mr. Mark Griffin:

The other point to make on whether ASM's report was forensic is I have a folder with appendices to it which includes much of the background documentation. In fairness to the consultants, the analysis they did at the time was very thorough and forensic.

I outlined to the Chairman some of the changes put in place in recent years by dint of public financial procedures being updated, anti-fraud policies being put in place and so on. In projects in which we are now involved which have a technical aspect, and many of the projects for which the Department is responsible are very technical, we use technical consultants to check project delivery as part of the certification process. There is a clear segregation of duties between staff in authorising various stages of the payments. All supporting documents are checked before claims are made. Payments are made to the promoters on a contract milestone basis. With regard to the national broadband scheme, which the committee examined in 2012, service checks are made on an ongoing basis to ensure projects already delivered are working to acceptable standards. There are monthly and quarterly scheduled technical examinations and detailed annual audits of the projects. Much has been done on the back of learning from previous projects in which we were involved and from other Departments. Perhaps the internal governance on the Bytel project in the Department was not up to scratch but I would like to think this has been addressed.