Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

Certainly, Deputy. We are concerned at a number of the procurement practices. I suppose they fit within the overall governance practices that we have. The primary responsibility on governance rests with the higher education institution in question. They have to put in place the appropriate procedures under the governance arrangements that are in place. An updated set of governance arrangements have been put in place by the HEA with them. They are supposed to go through an internal system of financial control-review which is signed off by the audit committee and governing body and then the Chair, in person, reports to the Higher Education Authority. Quite clearly, arising from that, there are a number of difficulties emerging. It is not all of the procurement across the board in the institutions but there are instances in each of the institutions and there are different sorts of instances in each of the institutions.

There are couple of red line issues which I know the committee has discussed and we are very concerned about. It is where an institution has decided not to implement the guidelines put in place by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. In particular, that has arisen with two institutions in the recent past and both institutions have been contacted. We, obviously, follow up with the HEA and the HEA follows up directly with the institutions. The HEA has had assurances from both institutions that they will implement the procedures in full.