Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At this point in time the university is looking back as a result of "Prime Time Investigates" and two reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General, one of which is before us and a more general one relating to severance payments, to which I will return. In addition, when I try to get my head around it, I have lost count of how many reports there are including from the Comptroller and Auditor General and Deloitte. I will come back to you, Chairman, to get a list of them over the last five to ten years; perhaps ten years. I refer to Deloitte, Howarth, which produced two reports relating to governance, Mazars, Thorn, mediators, investigators and Kieran Mulvey, and that is only touching on them. There are many other investigators or companies appointed to bring some type of accountability in respect of taxpayers' money to a system that should have its governance in place and should be working. On top of that we have the whistleblowers. This is to try to bring some level of accountability to an institution that is supposedly a third level institution that prides itself on its standards and open mind. Forgive my frustration, but that is where I am coming from.

I will return to specific questions on chapter 4 and severance payments to senior managers. Has Professor Fitzgerald read this chapter?