Ms Louise McGirr:

The Department accepts and acknowledges the extraordinary circumstance here. It is important that there is huge learning from it, but this happened over a combined period of time. We did introduce very quickly the flash reports, as they were referred to, for overall code expenditure. Our oversight mechanisms began to meet weekly on expenditure and we still have continued reporting and oversight in this area. Of course, we accept it was not ideal. I am sure the HSE similarly does not think it was ideal in those few weeks, but it was a finite period and measures were taken very quickly to put in the frequent oversight. The reporting improved significantly. We learned quickly and moved to ensure there were better oversight mechanisms for all.