Mr. Tom Moran:

I am sorry, Chairman. I thought it was switched off.

The reports covered the period of the transfer of responsibility for the fisheries harbours from one Department to another. I am confident that based on our response to our own internal audit reports and to our restructuring of the way we dealt with them, and bearing in mind the very useful contribution of the Comptroller and Auditor General, in the period as we go on there will be a dramatic improvement and, I hope, an elimination of any of the difficulties and the flaws that were being identified.

The management of the fishery harbours is a difficult enough area. That is not to say that any of the shortcomings in the past can be excused, but acting on each of the recommendations in the report, as we have done - I agree with many of them, if not all - we have moved on that process quite considerably. I will give one example which illustrates that. In terms of the way in which retrospective billing would have arisen, a new system was put in place and a new approach taken to measuring the landings of fish. That was done after we took it over. Arising from that we were in a position to discover discrepancies and were able to bill backwards in regard to fish that had been landed. That gave rise to a certain number of the retrospective bills.

On the property side, one of the valid recommendations is that there would be an up-to-date valuation and property register, and that is in hand. We have incorporated into our system automatic billing for rents and so on. That means it is happening on an ongoing basis.

In terms of the way in which it has developed over the period, and the submission of the reports was delayed for all these reasons, if we look at the structural improvements that have taken place in the handling of this process, I am confident this issue will not arise in future reports on the fishery harbours.