John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, gentlemen. First of all, I want to start with the core documents, pages 4 and 9. First, on page 4 - it's a minute of a meeting between a Mr. Kieran Kelly from Ernst and Young and the chief executive of EBS, Mr. McGovern, and it's from February 2007 - on page 4 in the third paragraph, I want to reference a quote, the second half of the third paragraph beginning with "He" ... "He also commented [he being Mr. McGovern] that whilst his confidence in the financial reporting function is improving he is still finding that there is imprecision in figures and that people are being forced into taking actions which are in turn imprecise and slightly unfocused." And again, on page 9, it's the management letter of 2005 under the heading "Risk", I want to reference it also:

There is a risk that the Society may fail to identify errors or [misposition] mispostings arising from uncontrolled changes to formulae or data in key spreadsheets. As a consequence, the financial statements of the Society may be misstated.

Mr. Fitzgerald, were you satisfied that you and the audit team from Ernst and Young had access to complete and accurate information from EBS in order to conduct your audit properly?