Ms Anne Marie McMahon:

Sorry Deputy, the recommendations of the audit report are accepted and are in the process of being implemented. An Garda Síochána absolutely has to comply with public sector controls, regulations and governance. The historical perspective is important because this was the situation in which An Garda Síochána found itself. There is evidence on file going back as far as 1986 - in fact, Mr. Niall Kelly came across it when he was doing his audit - that there was an investment of £200,000 directly from the Department of Justice into the Garda college. It is not as if An Garda Síochána were dreaming up these things on its own. We had oversight from our parent organisation and there is plenty of evidence of that. Mr. Gay Harris is the person in that particular one that I am referencing. I am not saying that it is right or that was the funding model that should have been put in place. It is clear now that it should not have been. That, however, is the backdrop to this. We are trying to regularise this in every way that we can.

I will respond to Mr. Barrett's question as to whether or not anything would have happened had he not brought this issue to light. As I mentioned earlier, I have been endeavouring to unravel this since 2013, together with the executive director of finance and, to a lesser extent, Mr. Ruane who, as the Commissioner's legal representative, could not really be involved in the sports field company business. In addition to that, and again in conjunction with the executive director of finance, any surpluses were wound down and used for the day-to-day running of the college so that when the new students came into Templemore in September 2014 there was no drawdown on the Garda Vote. It was on a net profit basis so that in the future, that situation would never again arise. There was a lot of work going on to bring the situation into 2017 governance standards and financial controls.

The elephant in the room was the issue of the Garda college restaurant staff and whether or not they were public employees. They clearly were not. At one point in the 2000s they set about going on strike and threatening to jeopardise the implementation of the new training programme, because the restaurant is an integral part of the Garda college. The Department rejected that suggestion at the time so the process continued. While efforts were being made to regularise the situation then, as long as the restaurant staff remained outside the public sector pay roll money was always going to have to be found to pay them. Whether that was right, wrong or otherwise, that was the factual position of the situation in which the Garda college found itself.