Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Six sets of financial statements have been presented and are now available. The first is from the Donegal Education and Training Board and relate to 2020. That received a clear audit opinion.

The financial statements from the Ombudsman for Children's Office also received a clear audit opinion for 2020.

The 2020 accounts for Ciste Pinsean Thithe an Oireachtais ar fad cóltaí, the pension fund for Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas, received a clear audit opinion.

The 2020 accounts for the Longford and Westmeath Education and Training Board received a clear audit opinion.

The 2020 financial statements for Microfinance Ireland, the provision of additional funding for which was mentioned during the meeting this morning, received a clear audit opinion. However, I draw attention to note 9 in the financial statements. It discloses that there was a provision charge for 2020 of €11.4 million in respect of bad and doubtful loan debts. At the end of 2020, the total of specific and collective provisions for loan bad debts amounted to €13.3 million on outstanding loan advances totalling €30.2 million. What a provision is doing is looking at the quality of the loans and anticipating that losses will be incurred in the future. That is a significant increase in the provision in the year, largely because of additional lending to businesses that were operating in a Covid environment. It is anticipated there will be a higher level of losses incurred as a result of that.

The final set of accounts presented are the annual financial statements for Science Foundation Ireland for 2020. There is a clear audit opinion.