Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 22 January 2015

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statements of the Higher Education Authority 2013
General Report No. 85 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Accountability and Governance on the National College of Art and Design

10:00 am

Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

We must first seek to ensure that this situation does not happen again.

I ask the Deputy's indulgence to allow me answer a question directed at the Comptroller and Auditor General and the HEA on whether there is concern about other institutions in the sector. I am obliged to answer that question as the Accounting Officer for my Department. We always have concerns about institutions across the sector. In the higher education sector there are two other higher education institutions who have not had system reviews, or reviewed their system, of internal financial control in the last year in which the Comptroller and Auditor General signed off their accounts. I am very concerned about the matter.