Bobby Aylward (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Department was still the paymaster however. It was giving more than €1 billion a year to An Garda Síochána. I know it has a Vote of its own. I understand all that, but the Department still had to hand over that money every year. Surely the Department had a role, and the Comptroller and Auditor General would have been responsible for checking up on that role. Did the Department not check along the line and see something wrong in the whole system? I keep repeating it, but it is unbelievable that no one ever brought this to mind.