Mr. Francis O'Donnell:

I would not agree with some of the Deputy's comments. I do not believe we take a laissez-faireattitude to anything in IFI. I have brought a significant number of governance issues to the attention of the board since I became CEO in 2020. There was nothing sinister about my base change. I have to say that the word "sinister" makes it sound as if things were predetermined and that I went about this in some kind of sneaky way. I did not do that. I have said, and state again for the record, that it was agreed with the chairman at the time and the head of human resources. The Comptroller and Auditor General is correct that there should have been a full board decision, but if it had been a sinister thing I would have just done it myself and not asked for permission to do it. My expenses were paid afterwards and signed off by the then chairman. It is important for the public watching this today to note we do not have alaissez-faire attitude. We have problems and we have apologised. We are absolutely up front about the problems and need to get through this bottleneck. We have two excellent board members working along with us at the moment and they have great experience. They are going to do a governance review that is going to help us. Public service organisations make mistakes and humans make mistakes, and we are here to answer for them. We have no issue but I have to object to the word "sinister".