Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What is curious is that the review is of the process by which the university carried out its own investigation. I put that to the HEA representative but also to the university witnesses. I would have been much happier if an independent outside agency had been given the entire job to do, not just the process by which the university reviewed matters, but to go in and examine the allegations. That would have been a far more credible approach to take because I read with some concern in the Mazars report that it was not making a finding or a conclusion and that it did not take a view on the allegations themselves but simply went in to look at the process. I find that a very unsatisfactory approach. The university, for reasons that are evident, will seek to manage and minimise these matters as they emerge, and I say that with the greatest of respect to the witnesses. That is what bureaucracies and systems do. A series of allegations were brought forward, not just by Person A - we will get to Persons B and C later in the questioning - that raise very serious concerns and I am not convinced that they had the kind of outside rigorous examination that would be required, certainly to reassure me. Person A is now banished and no longer works for the university. I believe Persons B and C are on leave. Is that the case?