Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

I would like to confirm there is no dispute. The land belongs to the State. It is important to provide assurance to the committee. My understanding very clearly from both the audit report and from my briefings is that nobody is suggesting that anybody other than the State owns the land. There is no question about the title of the land. This funding model developed from the time the college transferred to Tipperary in the 1960s. There is an important context there. A funding model was developed which certainly by today's standards would not be acceptable. The Commissioner was not then the Accounting Officer and, therefore, several other parties were cited in respect of this model, which was put in place over time, and because of that model, different practices developed. Going back to the Vice Chairman's question, it is important that we get to understand this. As a trained investigator, I always look for the evidence trail. We have to establish the facts. As of this moment, as has been identified by the committee, the facts have not been fully established and, therefore, we are not in a position to assess what is there.