Mr. John Horan:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for the invitation to appear here today to review the financial statements for 2016 and to discuss the operations of the National Treatment Purchase Fund. I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce to the committee my colleagues: Mr. Liam Sloyan, who took up the position of chief executive of the organisation on 4 May 2017, Ms Liz Lottering, who is our director of audit, quality and research, and Mr. Seán Flood, who has recently been appointed as the organisation's director of finance. As I have said, Mr. Liam Sloyan was only appointed to the position of chief executive in the course of 2017. Similarly, the director of finance has only recently taken up his position. Therefore, neither of them was in office during the accounting year 2016, but between all of us, we will be pleased to deal with any queries committee members may have about the financial statements for that year.

We have provided committee members with some background material. Rather than go through this in detail, I propose, by way of this opening statement, to deal briefly with some aspects of the matters. In the interests of good timekeeping and given the late hour, I propose not to cover all the material supplied to the committee in the written version of this opening statement, the Acting Chairman might be glad to hear.