John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to go back to the agenda and the special report but Deputy Deasy has raised an issue concerning the next meeting we will have with the Department and the Higher Education Authority. Earlier in this meeting, we decided we would ask in the presidents of the various colleges concerned along with representatives from the Higher Education Authority and the Department. I want to make particular reference to Carlow Institute of Technology and the fact that we received quite a significant amount of redacted material from the Department and an answer to a parliamentary question I asked on 7 July that I find totally unsatisfactory. However, I intend to deal with that at the public hearing we have planned when all the players are before us, especially the presidents, Mr. Ó Foghlú and the HEA.

During today's meeting, we heard two opening statements, from Mr. Ó Foghlú and Mr. Owens. They reassure us about the future or about the period from now into the future. I was taken aback by the fact that neither one dealt in any detail with the past and the horrendous lack of governance in the VEC over a long period under the eye of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Department of Education and Skills. I find it shocking, given the number of lives and families that have been destroyed by some of the actions taken by individuals who were involved in some of the controversies in the VEC over those years, that no reference was made to them. I would like to start from there.

The witness referred to the future system as being a well-organised, well-policed, regulated system. The past must have been the Wild West from what I can read, and there must have been a complete absence on the part of the two Departments that oversee or should have been overseeing the sector comprising the VECs.

Is it correct that the nameplate on the door was changed from VEC to ETB?