Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the officials from the Central Bank and thank them for coming before us to answer our questions on the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Central Bank adheres to proper governance and a code of practice and implements the Government's pay policies, which is very important. However, the report's findings do not always agree with that. I have highlighted some of them. While significant legal costs were incurred, details of the legal advice received were not documented on file in some cases. The bank had no written policy or guidelines for dealing with termination agreements and severance payments. In three of the six cases, there was no evidence that a review of all the options, risks and costs involved had been undertaken before the decision to pay severance.

The report also states, "While each case had an agreement on file that was signed by a representative of the Bank, it was not clear if the terms and amount of the settlement were approved at an appropriate level". It also states there was "no close correlation between the level at which agreements were signed and the value of the settlements" and no evidence "of any formal delegated authority in place in relation to the approval of severance agreements". The report assessed the bank's overall performance on severance payments against six good practice benchmarks and found the bank to be non-compliant in respect of half of these, which is a rate of 50%. I have a number of questions. Should I ask them together or one at a time?