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

Can I say that Professor Barry is using very muted language to describe what happened? As I understand it, and please correct me if I am wrong, hard as they tried person A found it almost impossible to get management to take responsibility or to sign off on what person A regarded as fraudulent expense claims. The detail of it is really quite astonishing; an allegation that mileage expenses were repeatedly misused to pay for the work done in the university; allegations around massive payments for academic staff to go as far away as Sydney; an attempt by staff to charge to the university and to the taxpayer expenses for their spouses; use of expense accounts to perhaps bypass procurement rules and guidelines in the purchase of PC equipment. I could go on. All the while, person A, exercising due diligence and operating in accordance with their responsibilities, hit a brick wall when dealing with management. I put it to Professor Barry that this is much more the experience of person A than simply finding systems deficiencies or areas where improvements were necessary. I put it to the witness that person A stumbled across a system that was arbitrary, a system that displayed favouritism and a system that went completely against the grain and broke the University of Limerick's rules, according to the status of the person making the claim.