Mr. John Treacy:

I do not think it has caused public trust issues. This committee asked us to review our terms and conditions and strengthen them. I think we have done that substantially without going into the regulatory role. We work in collaboration with organisations. We have so much power over these organisations. At the same time, they are autonomous organisations. If we give funding to an organisation and auditors come back confirming that funding was expended for the purposes for which we gave it, I am not sure we can do much more.

We have taken more steps regarding our terms and conditions of funding. The last time we appeared before this committee, we heard about the complete audit of organisations. We have taken that on board and put it into our terms and conditions of funding. I think it is okay because if taxpayers' money is going into any organisation, it needs to stand over its financial procedures. We took that advice from this committee on board and the board implemented it straightaway. We have acted in the best interests of the taxpayer, the Minister and this committee in the recommendations. We take these committee hearings very seriously. We go away and think about how we will react. As we demonstrated today, we have come up with a clear action plan from the previous committee meeting we attended. We have been very proactive.