Mr. Ian Drennan:

To be clear, it is not that we could not examine auditor performance. Auditor performance does not fall within our remit. It is not that there was some sort of impediment but that it falls completely outside of our mandate. IAASA is an entity which also comes within the committee's remit, given its jurisdiction with the Department. Up until recently, it had a specific mandate which has now changed on foot of European legislation and it has a direct relationship with the audit firms that the Senator refers to. Back in my time, one could not go into an audit firm and carry out an inspection on an audit file. That has now changed to where they can, and do, do that. That entire regulatory mechanism and framework has changed in recent years. There is a statutory entity that not only can, but does, look at auditor performance. It just does not happen to be the ODCE because we do something completely different. I hope that helps. I am quite happy to talk about that outside the committee.