Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

As the Chairman said, there are four sets of financial statements to deal with. The first relates to University College Cork. Those are the 2019-20 financial statements. I have given a qualified audit opinion for those statements. The university recognises an asset in respect of deferred pension funding and that is standard practice for universities. I do not normally qualify in such circumstances. However, in this case, the amount of the asset that is recognised includes €11.1 million in respect of liabilities relating to professional added years for transferred in service. There is an agreement between the university and the Higher Education Authority that the expenses relating to the professional added years for transferred in service would be split on a 50:50 basis, but the university is over-recognising by €3.8 million in respect of that. In my view, that is not in accordance with the agreement and, therefore, I have qualified the audit opinion.

I also draw attention to significant non-compliance with procurement rules by the university. More detail in that regard is given in the fees statement on internal control.

The second set of financial statements relates to the Oberstown Children Detention Campus. Those are the financial statements for 2020 and I have given a clear audit opinion.

The third relates to the Credit Union Restructuring Board, ReBo. These financial statements relate to the year of account 2017. ReBo finished its restructuring operations in July 2017 and it was intended that the board would be dissolved at that stage. However, the dissolution had to be done by way of new legislation and that Act was only passed in 2020. I gave a clear audit opinion but there was a very significant delay in the finalisation of the 2017 financial statements. The reason for that was that the board, in 2017, did not keep adequate accounting records. It failed to correctly record and explain the transactions for the year and, therefore, we were unable to carry out an audit of the financial statements. There was engagement with the Department of Finance, where the board is now housed. In 2021, the board appointed external accounting expertise to investigate and rectify the accounting records. Once that was done, we were able to complete the audit.

There are a number of further periods of account that we have now proceeded to audit with very few transactions. I hope we will be able to do those fairly promptly. As it stands, the board continues in existence until we have completed that process.

The accounts of the Qualifications and Quality Assurance Authority of Ireland for 2020 have been presented. I gave those a clear audit opinion.