Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Despite all of that, and this is my final comment, we had an official from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sitting on that particular board. That raises even more concerns for me given the position he held within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and what this report states in terms of the information that was coming forward to the steering group and the ability of the steering group and the programme group to act on that information. The difficulty is that we have a board which, in my opinion, this report questions in terms of its capability. That is my reading of the report. We have a situation where we need additional members and additional expertise brought in and the difficulty is that people do not have confidence in the current board. I certainly do not have confidence in the current board given what I have read in the report. The report also states that we can have a widespread clear-out, but the question is how that is managed and how we regain that credibility in the development board without having a complete clear-out and leaving in place some of the individuals who were directly responsible, in my opinion, for some of the failings and the fiascos we face.