Mr. Francis Doherty:

I would see it as two different strands. The capital assistance scheme or long-term leases were supported and funded by local authorities and the Department of housing. The housing development team would have led on those and we would have very comprehensive records of those over the years. It is very easy to reconcile those because they are all public records as well. The issue was that the board had approved a policy where the CEO could sign any lease on any property for any value without the board's oversight or involvement. That was a policy agreed by the board for the long-term CEO. The issue was that nobody had any direct record of what leases had, over the course of 18 years, been signed or entered into and whether those leases had actually gone through the normal course of engaging independent solicitors to look at and agree the conditions and terms of the lease agreements. On the one side, you had a very well-run, State-funded programme of capital development, long-term leasing, delivery for housing first and homeless families. On the other side, you had a very ad hoc arrangement where leases were being signed by the CEO. Some leases were for properties of up to €2 million a year for 20 years, where the funding from the Peter McVerry Trust was only guaranteed for 12 months under the SLA by the statutory funders.