Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests. I wish to put on the record our thanks to the Department of Education and Skills. It has had an incredibly difficult year, and everybody recognises that. Nobody could have imagined the challenges it would face. Everything needs to be accepted in that context, and I wish to clarify that that is accepted by the committee.

To call a spade a spade, the witnesses know the reason the committee decided to invite the Department here. It was as a result of the debacle surrounding the calculated grades. We are told we have to be careful in what we put to the witnesses and how we put it, but we have an opportunity to get a sense of the procedures that have been in place traditionally in the Department and to come to an understanding of how different things were managed. We understand that non-competitive procedures are sometimes used. I think the Comptroller and Auditor General uses the term "in matters of urgency". I think we probably understand what urgency means now better than ever. In those instances what safeguards are in place? For example, has it ever happened in 2019, 2018 or any other previous year that a company or a representative of a company would be employed in an advisory capacity and end up subsequently securing a lucrative contract, from either the Department or an agency of it?