Ms Mary Dooley:

We call our governing authority Údarás na hOllscoile. I produce a set of completed accounts for our governing authority by March of every year, within six months of the year end. It is important to note that this set of accounts is not just the one that I present but that the auditors appointed by the governing authority have audited and cleared those accounts before they are presented to the governing authority. We meet the six-month requirement for production of accounts.

As I acknowledge the Comptroller and Auditor General has said, and we are of the same view, the timing of clearing the audits and making them available to the Committee of Public Accounts and so on is unacceptable to the university and obviously unacceptable to this committee and to the Comptroller and Auditor General. I would like to put on record that the university regrets any actions on our part that may have contributed to those delays. One or two of the years, as has been said and is in the report, were quite delayed. As the president has said, we are committed to working with the Comptroller and Auditor General's office to bring that right back within the timelines that he has now laid down by order.