Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

I will say, and I agree with the Chairman's point, that I would be reluctant to make definitive statements about a range of bodies, the relationships between them and the exercise of their functions without doing a piece of work to underpin that opinion. In regard to any system of internal financial control, it is almost impossible to design a system that will definitively prevent any abuse, fraud or irregularity. It is almost impossible to do it. The best one can do is put a system in place that gives reasonable assurance that controls operate in the way that is expected. Obviously, it is important, having put the system in place, to check that it is working. I discussed that yesterday regarding a number of bodies - I think it was the ETBs - where I drew attention to the fact that the annual review of the effectiveness of the system of internal financial control had not been carried out, and I made the point that that is a very important exercise that is done. In fairness to the HSE, I would have to say it does take that very seriously. It does carry out that review of the effectiveness of the system and it accepts and discloses in the statement on internal financial control that it is not perfect and that it needs to be improved. We make recommendations along those lines, and it engages with us seriously, but there are things that have to be improved in the system.