Mr. Michael Murnane:

The principal item of procurement in 2014 related to pension services. It related to defined benefit pension services. The chief executive has advised a figure of €388,000. That item was €149,000 on its own. The Chairman referred to the advancement made on the defined benefit proposal to address the deficit. We took a decision at the time to maintain that service provider, which provided information in respect of staff levels and years of service, etc. Now that the process has reached a conclusion, one part of the defined benefit service has been procured and is going through a deliberative process as we speak. The second part will be going through procurement post member communication, which will be early in the new year and tender documents are ready to go. We are simply waiting on member communication to sign off. From that point of view, the largest portion of the outstanding procurement would be dealt with at that stage. Our procurement officer has stringent controls. He approves all invoices. One of his checks is whether invoices are procurement compliant. From that point of view he is on top of everything that happens. It is a commercial, fluid organisation and we endeavour as much as possible to try to get value for money.