Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The letter was provided to us at the meeting the other day. I knew there had been suggestions, somewhere in evidence, that the Garda College may have been seeking charitable status but I did not realise the magnitude of what this could mean. I asked whether there was any correspondence. There was not. During a break, the secretariat approached the CAO, who provided the correspondence, within which there was an email that mentioned this troubling muddying-the-waters commentary.

Included in what was provided was a thread of email correspondence from PwC advising Mr. Culhane, and correspondence to Eugene Banks, who was in the Garda division of the Department of Justice and Equality. The Department was able to clarify the other day that he is still in the Department but in a different role. If we are finished in terms of having witnesses in for public hearings, I would like to have Mr. Banks in to put some questions to him. It would be reasonable for us to contact Mr. Banks to see what he might like to tell us or share with us in regard to this matter. In any event, we should look for the entire email thread the correspondence relates to, because there seems to be only one or two but they suggest many more. We should also look for any other correspondence that may exist between the director of finance and the Garda and Mr. Banks with regard to issues on taxation on the charitable status of Templemore, and any other correspondence with PwC on the same matter. That would be very useful for us so we can make a fair analysis of this issue before we write our report.