Ms Mary Farrell:

It is not fair to say one could not get information. The problem is that there are over 2,600 wards, many of whom are older people who would not have somebody who would be an active committee member or who would be involved in the day-to-day management. They oversee everything. They would go to the Courts Service in regard to funding they need, consideration of a medical matter or services, for example. With regard to sending out accounts, in our experience over 27 years we have never received a statement we have not sought. That would be the case with the other members also. What I desire has been promised many times along the line. Included in the members' correspondence is a letter dated 2009 that claims that statements would be sent out annually from then on, after the crisis and the discovery that the value of the fund had dropped in 2009. Since then - I cannot remember all the dates but certainly in 2016 - it was promised that all these statements would come out. It was said a new system would be introduced to enable this. We were promised it again by the end of September of this year but the members who would expect to receive statements have not received them. Not in 27 years has that happened.

If one requests information, one gets exactly what one requests. If one just looks for a note on the funds, one may receive the balance. That would be just one single sheet. Unless one seeks more detailed information about the performance of the fund and the folio of the payments and receipts during the year, one will not get it. It is not fair, across the board, that committee members who are very active regarding their ward can get the information simply because they do that sort of thing. Other people would not even know who to write to for the details; that is a fact.