Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Yes. I have talked about other third level institutes and the importance of consolidation. Over several years, many of the third level institutions have established subsidiaries to carry out particular functions. It is a perfectly reasonable approach to take to the business. However, it is important that if there are assets, liabilities or transactions, they would be consolidated. Accordingly, when the financial statements are presented, one gets a full picture of what are the assets, liabilities and transactions of the entity, rather than a compartmentalised one.

Most of the colleges have moved to consolidate those or were already doing so. Waterford Institute of Technology was different in that it maintained that there was complete independence between the subsidiaries and the institution, so it was not consolidating them. The risk was that there was something going on in the companies. We had no particular evidence that there was a problem. We felt consolidation would be good practice, particularly because of the amount of money that was being given.

It transpired afterwards, however, that there were guarantees and undertakings provided by the college to the companies. That certainly strengthened the case for ensuring they were consolidated. This was confirmed by Mr. Quigley in his report. Progress is being made. In the 2014 financial statements, we will able to see the full standing of the college on 31 August 2014.