Ms Breda O'Keeffe:

I would say it occurs for a couple of reasons. We had 2,006 suppliers in 2017. We have a vast range of supplies. We have six separate business divisions. Moreover, it is a large organisation across multiple sites throughout Ireland and so it can be distributed.

The structure does not always lend itself to a centralised policy. Our systems are very old. That our overall finance and resource planning systems date from 2003 is one of the reasons for this issue, as is the lack of capital investment. I do not blame the committee in that regard but we need more investment in our equipment. We have identified some exceptions and have dealt with over 30% of those since year end.