Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Given that those guidelines have only recently been issued we will be continuing with our work of examining severance payments where we come across them and where they arise. We now have clarity as well about how the Department expects them to be reported and handled, and the level of sanction required before such payments are made. If I find in the future that a significant payment has been made that is not compliant I will point that out, depending on the amount and the level of the oversight, to the management and board of a public body but I might also refer to it in my audit certificate on their financial statements. We have done that in other instances.

We have used this as an exercise to be clear about how we will test severance payments that we come across and examine. Any significant severance payment that we would identify will go through the tests that we expect to see for the procedure. We will be looking for the supporting documentation, for the advice, the signed agreement and so on.

In Chapter 3, in respect of some payments made, we asked a public body to show us the signed agreements. It had draft agreements but it did not have signed agreements in place. That is not acceptable to us.