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

I am not sure that I did looking at the transcript but normally before I start questioning, I tend to point out to witnesses that we use a robust, adversarial style at the committee and we often cut in on people. We tend to qualify an apology in advance if anybody feels threatened by that. All questions at the meeting were relevant to the subject of the day, which was public private partnerships, PPS. I asked about two PPPs at CIT, including the national maritime college. I wanted to know specifically about the contract manager and his qualifications. From my research, when a question was asked about this at the committee in 2014, an answer had not come back. My search did not show that. I appreciate that Mr. Ó Foghlú did send it in. Now that I have seen it, it makes the relevant questions all the more pertinent because that document was prepared following the meeting in 2014 and it alluded to the 37 years' experience of the particular individual specifically relevant to PPPs. That is simply not the case. This person was appointed as a department head in 2004 and had a science background.

With regard to the questioning, we had established the last day that there were serious problems with that particular building. That is the reason we were asking about contact managers. We established that if they were looking for a contract manager with expertise, they would not be looking for a scientist. They would be looking for architects, mechanical and electrical engineers with a suitable background. This person did not have this and that is pertinent to the fact that we were dealing with €110 million of the people's money and, as it happens, the project did not go that well.

I also specifically mentioned the fact that there was a whistleblower's report, which was produced after an investigation with terms of references set by the Department. We were concerned about it last June when it came up. When we get to the work programme later, I will seek to have CIT included again because it is not included currently. There are serious governance questions in the college.

On the PPP, I mentioned that the individual did not have the appropriate background, expertise and professional qualifications. That seems to be confirmed by the document, which I accept was sent in. It did not come up in my search but Mr. Ó Foghlú clearly responded in June 2014. I also had a concern that this person and another person had retired and come back a couple of days later as consultants. That was not done in the normal way and only retrospective approval was given by the HEA and the Department of Education and Skills, which, again, is not good practice. It is bad governance and raises the question as to why were they brought back and in what role. The Secretary General was not in a position to tell me the role. Was it connected to the PPP because there was such a good job being done on it or was it connected to another area? I happened to know from my own research that a retirement function was held for this individual. I simply asked Mr. Ó Foghlú whether he attended it because we have a precedent where he attended one for the president of CIT, which came up briefly last June, and, hopefully, it will be dealt with when we get to CIT again. However, I wanted to get a picture of this. There was a retirement function and the following Monday, the person was back in at €21,000 a year. The expertise that he was allegedly supposed to have did not play out that well when it came to the marine college.

The Chairman misunderstood me by thinking that I wanted to return to discussing the retirement function for the CIT president that made all the headlines, including a reference to ice sculptures and so on. That was not my intention at the time.

Let me outline another thing that I said. The KPMG report referred to a missing page of the documentation that was-----