Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

On the question about the National Gallery of Ireland and jumping the gun, the difficulty with the room was that because it was radiation equipment it needed lead lining of the room. The gallery has not been able to find a room that would take the weight of the lead lining, which will obviously be additional expense to create the chamber the camera can be used in. In the meantime the camera is not being used.

On the energy scheme, there is an important principle in public expenditure called the regularity principle and it states that funding is only used for the purposes intended by the Oireachtas. While the funding was provided to support clubs and sports bodies with their energy expenditure when energy prices went up, in fact the energy bills did not rise as high as expected. Some of the money was actually paid to governing bodies and to clubs but it had to be recovered because they were unable to satisfy the conditions under which it had been provided. The money had to be given back. As it was only provided for one purpose, they could not divert it to another use even though there would be many good uses it could have been put to, but that is the regularity principle.

It was not only in the sports area where that was an issue. There was funding of, I think, about €500 million provided for business. However, business did not claim that kind of money and much of that money was surrendered back to the Exchequer as well. It may be that because of the delay in price rises within the period being grant funded, it was not sufficient to justify the drawdown of the grants. That is probably the explanation the committee will get from Sport Ireland on that.

On Inland Fisheries Ireland, I prefer not to give a blanket view on the issues that have arisen until I have presented the report. I do not want to prejudge my final consideration of that. That is all I have to offer at this stage.