Mr. Mark Griffin:

We were copied on an e-mail in early June 2006 which stated that these allegations had arisen and that a meeting was being set up for the latter part of June 2006. I do not know why we did not attend. There is no evidence on file in relation to it. In fairness to the individual involved in the project at the time, the e-mail certainly indicated his intent to attend the meeting, but we did not attend the meeting. Had we attended the meeting we might have got a better sense as to the seriousness of the whistleblower allegations, although the conclusion drawn subsequently by DETI was that this was an internal dispute among the directors of Bytel. ASM concluded in its own forensic audit in 2009 that we took our eye off the ball. If the seriousness of the allegations made by the whistleblower in 2006 had been fully appreciated, again, there may have been an opportunity to step in at that stage. The project was concluded, but it would have allowed us to determine at an earlier stage that the funding was ineligible, and we had still a number of years left on the INTERRIG III programme to allow for the possible reallocation of funds to other projects that would have been eligible. Mr. Pat Colgan may have a view on that.