Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

I would say that the setting of the framework for how severance payments are to be dealt with is a matter for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, but the board of each agency is then responsible for implementing that framework. If a board is unsure, or if it interprets it in one way only for a different board to interpret it in another, that is a problem. When we come to look at these payments and identify that different bodies have treated severance payments in different ways, we are in a position to identify the source of that difficulty. That was what gave rise to the report. We have to figure out why people are doing things differently in different places. When we came back and talked to the Department about it, we said that the bodies needed more guidance. We have tried to provide such guidance in our report.