Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 20 November 2025
Public Accounts Committee
Exceptional Funding of the Peter McVerry Trust: Discussion
2:00 am
Mr. Tony O'Brien:
First of all, I thank the Deputy for the nice remarks earlier, which are appreciated. Yes, we do accept that what might be regarded as normative governance practice and normative financial management practise, and in particular the respect for the distinction between restricted and unrestricted funds, clearly did break down. That broke down in a context whereby, as I mentioned in the opening statement, the trust was becoming increasingly unsustainable from a financial point of view, and the confluence of those two things are what created what we would generally refer to as the crisis that emerged in 2023.
No comments