Mr. John McCarthy:

Certainly. We also discussed this with Deputy MacSharry earlier. The question of a potential role for the Comptroller and Auditor General in the audit of Irish Water arose in, I believe, late 2017 when legislation was before another committee. The Minister indicated that he was amenable to having that possibility explored. One of the questions asked this morning was about the issues that had cropped up as part of that exercise. I will mention a couple of them. First, Irish Water is established as a company under the Companies Acts.

That legislation requires audit by a statutory auditor and the Comptroller and Auditor General is not a statutory auditor for that purpose. That raises the prospect of there being two audits.