Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We know there is a Garda investigation into it. The committee has been inundated with correspondence on the matter every week. Will the Department send us a note on where the investigation is at? I have told those who write to the committee that if the matter is being investigated by the Garda Síochána, the committee will not examine the matter in the meantime.

The witnesses gave the committee some good briefing material on the 150 internal audit reports carried out during the year. The first six months of them have been published. The HSE internal audit unit routinely releases HSE internal audit reports biannually under freedom of information. Some 75 of them are currently being examined for release and it is expected it will be by July. I know we had several cases before where the reports could not be released. It was the one relating to the Console charity. The HSE did not release it and we did not want to, even with Oireachtas privilege. At the time the HSE stated that if it had carried out the audit with the knowledge it would have to publish it, it might have written it up differently. Has the HSE changed the structure or the format of its reports? Are they suitably anodyne that they are all publishable? Is all the hard stuff left out?