Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

The committee heard Will Molloy's opening statement on 23 February at the last hearing. Inhouse, his statement reflects my views; I will not repeat it. I will just make three points. First, on the issue of grants of credit and together with the additional controls the Department of Finance has introduced, I am satisfied that the end-to-end process is significantly stronger and robust enough to avoid a recurrence of the incident set out in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report.

The agreed changes are reflected in the revised service level agreement between the Department and the Central Bank of Ireland.

In regard to the insurance compensation fund, the role of the Central Bank is to administer and determine the contributions of insurers to the fund but does not include policy decisions regarding the use of the funds. The role of the Revenue Commissioners is the collection of the contributions from insurers and the transfer of those contributions to the fund. All the recommendations made by the Comptroller and Auditor General have been accepted and implemented by both the Revenue Commissioners and the Central Bank.

The draft 2022 accounts of the fund prepared on the accruals basis are in an advanced state of preparedness and should be with the Comptroller and Auditor General by the agreed date of 30 June.