Ms Anne Graham:

What would have happened in regard to Kerry Flyer is that it would have put forward a tender for the running of the rural transport services. At that time, they would have been considered and evaluated by Kerry Community Transport Limited which would have accepted those contracts. It is not appropriate that the contractor or client would then check each expense associated with or related to a particular contract. They accept the contract tender price associated with the delivery of those services which then get delivered by the operator.

The audit that we would do is an audit of funding that goes to rural transport groups that manage those services. We accept that the contracts have been properly tendered and put forward through a public procurement and that those costs are reasonable, related to the operation of those services.