Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

We actually discussed it during the correspondence earlier. The policy encapsulated in the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993 is that the Comptroller and Auditor General may audit funds, etc., of Departments but not a fund managed by the courts. That is where the impediment to my doing as proposed, by agreement or otherwise, lies. It would require legislative amendment. The measure is in place for a very particular reason, that is, the separation of powers between the legislative side and the court side. It has to be done not as a blanket change because there are other funds managed by courts and so on. All that would have to be thought through, followed by the presentation of a report by me to the Oireachtas.