Mr. Tom Byrne:

As Mr. O'Brien said, the problem is that it would prejudicial at this stage to discuss the findings of the report. The relevant authorities were informed of the findings at the time. It was not a comprehensive audit - it was actually a finance and governance review. We provide funding for over 2,000 charities and disability services throughout the country. Ours is one of a number of Government agencies that provide such funding. The Department of Education and Skills also provides it. We rely heavily, as any organisation would, on the accounts we receive annually from organisations of this nature. In this case, we are talking about an independent limited liability company with its own board of directors and chairman and its own independent auditors. We review the statutory accounts which are signed by auditors as being true and fair.

Over a number of years we received that. I could explain here but I will write back to the committee formally in detail. An issue did arise a number of years ago in relation to this. As Mr. Tony O'Brien has said, as a health service, we try to work with everyone. We are very conscious of the 200 plus children with whom this charity deals. If the company accounts are signed off and supplied to us we will go by those and review those. We have meetings on a monthly basis with our regional managers of all of these service providers. To a large extent one would be inclined to say that the matter, when it arose, arose through the fact that the Revenue Commissioners advised us that a note of attachment was coming through. That was the first notification we had that there was an issue. We took it up with the board which is being addressed. Again, I would be circumspect in discussing further as to what has happened. Our governance review is what the Deputy is referring to. I know the new external auditors have carried out their own 78 page audit of the board of Sunshine Home-----