Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

I would expect not and I would not expect to be reporting. I think because I have brought attention to it public bodies have already started putting proper systems in place and completing the record. Payments will continue to be made. Public bodies now know that they must disclose the fact that they are making the payments and the aggregate value of those payments. If that is done it is in the financial statements. Members of the public can see that.

It is also important, and this is one of the key reasons for the disclosure, that the overseeing Department that relies on the financial statements will see that these payments have been made. It can check its records to see whether we gave sanction for those payments to be made. It happens regularly that expenditure requires the sanction of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform not just in respect of severance payments. If we find during the course of audit that we do not see the sanction what very often happens is the body then has to go the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and say it forgot to go to it with this and ask is it alright with it. It receives retrospective sanction. A similar process happens in the third level sector where the sanction of the Higher Education Authority, HEA, is required for particular lines of expenditure or transactions. If the sanction is missing we say it has to go back to the body that was supposed to give the sanction and fix the thing and then put systems in place to ensure it does not happen again.