Mr. Tony O'Brien:

This is a real challenge for us. One ought reasonably to be able to rely upon the annual financial statement and its audit certificate, as provided by registered audit practitioners who are in a regulated profession and filed with the Companies Registration Office. As the Comptroller and Auditor General said earlier, the entire public service, not just the HSE, must be able to rely upon that. We have had occasion in the past to make complaints to professional regulatory bodies in other well known incidents, but it has not got us anywhere. This will be pursued, but if we find - and I am not suggesting we have found - that this is a widespread problem, it would be a fundamental problem on a whole-of-society basis. It goes to the heart of corporate governance architecture for both the public and the private sectors.