Professor Willie Donnelly:

The chairman of the governing body of Waterford Institute of Technology. Somebody had informed him that I was a director at some time. He had asked me; I said, "Absolutely not", the same response I gave here. When I went home, I thought I had better check it. I checked it and found I was a director for a period of time. I rang the chairman.

The chairman then discussed it internally. Obviously, because I was hugely embarrassed by it and knew that members of the governing body were not members during that period, I asked that we would carry out an internal inquiry to provide information so that the governing body members would not feel there was anything untoward here. That was simply me forgetting something. I delegated the authority to the financial controller - normally this type of inquiry would be carried out by the president - to enable her to carry out the inquiry. The results of the inquiry were delivered to the governing body. The implication that, somehow or other, the financial controller was restricted because she reports to or is one of the executives of the institute is amazing. The institute has a culture of questioning each other and professionalism. The people who wrote that report did it in a very professional way. If they had come to a conclusion that was distasteful or somehow reflected on the president, they would have published it. That is the type of people they are. Due to the disquiet that is out there because of the line of questioning that is coming-----