Mr. Gerry Fitzpatrick:

I guess, firstly, the financial statements are the directors' financial statements so my job is to make sure that the directors properly reflect all of those aspects. And so the key role and the challenge that the auditor provides is to the board is to make sure they are giving disclosure of those elements. You've instanced any concerns one might have in relation to asset values or liquidity and some of the disclosures I described were very important in allowing the reader understand the maturity of debt facilities, the funding gap the organisation had with the ... with the short-term funding model and a long-term asset base, and on the asset base, gave reference to the quality of that loan book. My concerns were to ensure that the directors were properly reflecting what was happening in those on the ground in terms of their records and their financial systems, ensuring that the financial statements properly capture those elements of disclosure.

In terms of my discussions with the audit committee, clearly, as an audit process, as I described, starts in terms of setting out a plan. And that plan would include looking at particular areas of focus and some of the areas like loan impairment, like going concern and other significant judgments would have been disclosed and discussed with an audit committee and I would have set out my approach to testing that, but, ultimately, my concern is to make sure the financial statements present the information that the directors have in terms of their records.