James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Drennan and welcome him and his colleagues to the committee. Listening to and reading his opening statement, if I understand correctly, he is dividing the history of corporate enforcement in Ireland into three stages. The first is the period from 1963 to 20 years ago, when there was effectively no corporate enforcement in place, which is quite concerning. There is nothing we can do about it now, but that is quite a stark statement to make. Then there appears to be a period from the establishment of the office to perhaps 2009 or 2010, and I think the implication is that the situation left much to be desired even then. Then there is now. Reading on in the statement he made and the material we have been supplied with, a number of actions have been taken in recent years to address any gaps that exist, to increase the resources available in Mr. Drennan's office, including training, and really to ramp up the office and its activities to an acceptable level. I commend him on this. It is good to see this progress being made, albeit from a low bar, as he said himself. The previous position is worrying but is water under the bridge, to an extent.

I might put a few questions to Mr. Drennan for him to respond to together. First, will he clarify whether my understanding of this three-stage categorisation is correct?

Second, quite a number of statistics on restrictions, disqualifications and indeed prosecutions that have been successfully brought are given in the material provided. Mr. Drennan talks about the recruitment and training to which the ODCE's teams have been subject. Again, this is great to see, and I commend him on it. Quite extensive training and recruitment seem to be taking place. One figure that jumps out concerns the recruitment. It appears that many competent professionals, including forensic accountants and gardaí, have been hired into the office, and rightly so. However, it appears that only two barristers have been taken on across the board. This is straying into the DPP and the FitzPatrick trial, and I appreciate it is not the be-all and end-all, but given the high-level finding that there appeared to be evidential issues with presentation and preparation for court, the way in which evidence was processed in court and the nature of that processing and of prior deliberation on it, it appears that the gap was in the areas of courtroom practice and preparation, which constitute the professional skill set of barristers. Would it perhaps be wise to engage further barristers, considering only two appear to have been taken on, or does the ODCE engage with counsel in other ways? Is there a detailed and ongoing engagement with counsel on any case that goes to court? This would probably be wise because while the other people certainly have very important roles and skill sets, given what appears to be the deficiency highlighted, namely, courtroom practice and preparation, is very much within the barrister's domain of expertise, perhaps it would be wise to engage that profession more.

I have another question, but perhaps Mr. Drennan would like to respond to those I have asked and I could ask my other questions when I come in again. Is that okay?