Mr. John Hogan:

I welcome the opportunity to assist the committee and will respond to Deputy Kelly's questions.

We are open to sharing any information we have with the committee and working with it to ensure, as Deputy Mary Lou McDonald stated, that we have good stewardship, accountability and oversight. As a standing agenda item on our board each month I ask if anyone there has any conflicts of interest. That is one of the first agenda items. The only conflict of interest declared was a recent declaration by one lady that she was related to Deputy Alan Kelly. When the Deputy had questions in the Dáil the lady wondered if she had a conflict of interest in that she was there when she also worked with him. We were quite happy to leave the lady in place because we believed she worked in good faith and we thanked her for declaring it. We did not ask her to leave the meeting. That was the only conflict of interest I have had.