Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will get to the area Mr. O'Connor wants to talk about, but I want to rule out all these items first. It certainly has to do with legal and professional costs and we will come to the specifics. There were property acquisitions and then legal and professional separate to that, and then there were office administration costs and some employment costs. My impression is that, out of €2.5 million spent, almost 50% was outside procurement guidelines because the vast majority of the Housing Agency's expenditure during the year related to pyrite, employment costs, pension costs, depreciation costs, HomeBond costs, transfers to the Exchequer, Fingal costs. There is only about €4 million left, or even less. Most of the Housing Agency's discretionary purchasing or procurement of goods and services was completely outside the pale. Does Mr. O'Connor understand the point I am making? I have narrowed down the areas where this breach of procurement procedures occurred and ruled out all of the areas in which it cannot have occurred. That means that in the areas where good and services were procured, €1.246 million was outside procurement guidelines. That is a phenomenally high percentage. I have never seen any organisation with such a high percentage of their procurement outside Government guidelines. I know Mr. O'Connor will give me the excuse now but does he get the starting point?