Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will write to the senior Minister because this has come from the Department, not from the Minister of State's constituency office. Okay, we will move on.

On the next item on the agenda, the last day we had a discussion here about the timeliness of the accounts being presented to us and we were on the verge of sending Waterford Institute of Technology and all the organisations here home. It is a waste of the committee's time being asked to consider accounts that cover the period 2013 and 2014 - that is what we had in front of us. We will not be accepting that. I note the Comptroller and Auditor General recently completed a report on this and we will come back to that. We want to immediately send out a signal to all those bodies that it is not acceptable and there will be consequences.

The outcome of the meeting on the last occasion was we asked them to ensure they had their audited accounts for up to 2016 properly completed by the end of June to submit to the Comptroller and Auditor General for audit, and hopefully we would have that after the summer recess when we come back in September. Even at that point in time, it will be over a year after their financial statements. That is reasonable.

The Comptroller and Auditor General and committee are in the same space on this. The Comptroller and Auditor General might wish to respond.