Mr. Francis Doherty:

In my view, the trust led the way on that problematic model. There has been reference perhaps in the housing committee previously that there was evidence of other contracts being substantially below the actual cost to deliver those services. The trust took it to an industrial scale nationally.

The fundraising team, which did an incredible job of raising €9 million or €10 million each year across a huge number of events involving many important donors and small donors across the country, could not keep pace with it. That meant the shortfall was growing year on year.