Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

In fairness, and the Comptroller and Auditor General acknowledges this too, that in 2012 the board recognised there was a deficiency in section 172 whereby it only covered the sale of properties. That is why the board said it would extend farther than the legislation allowed and that we would seek the section 172 for sales by debtors or receivers or in respect of loan sales. The board extended it even though it had no statutory basis. Therefore, we started seeking the section 172 declarations anyway even though it was not particularly a legal requirement under the Act to deal with that. The board recognised this in 2012.