Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Can I just finish by going back, perhaps, to the letter that my colleague, Deputy Doherty, referred to ... the letter between ... the Kieran Kelly file note in relation to Ted McGovern ... I beg your pardon, that's the core document, page 3 ... page 3 and 47, actually, on page 4. So, he goes on to say that Mr. McGovern raised various things like the reliance on a few numbers of very key people is a risk - he was talking about in the institution - that there is imprecision in figures and that people are being forced into taking actions which are, in turn, imprecise and slightly unfocused. In respect of control breakdowns in the year, he said that there would appear to be fewer than in previous years, which he took as being a positive outcome from some changes and actions which had been taken. He said that there were, and I quote, "a couple of fraud instances and behavioural instances" which caused him concern. So ... and then he goes on to say, "I asked [him about the] focus on commercial lending [as a fit in] the ethos of the society as a retail financial services provider", and he said "this is a business line that they feel they can make return commensurate with their risk and for which they have skills and opportunities to capitalize on". So again, largely, those comments feel again to people not familiar ... and we've listened a lot to auditors saying that it is a faithful statement and that it looks at the figures in a time and that you don't have anything to do with the running or the influence of the management. I appreciate you've observed that it is a ... that it was a background briefing, but it does seem as if there were very specific observations being made about problems at the society, albeit it's in, you know, in this context, so I'm just wondering how ... there was clearly an exchange here. How ... I don't know how that fits into the audit process.