Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

In the nth degree they could be referred to the Garda but we have to be very careful when penalising schools that we do not penalise the pupils. We face this difficulty across the board in the education sector. If somebody has engaged in a sufficiently large fraud that would be referred to the Garda or to human resources and industrial relations processes. The school would have to repay any over allocation. We would have to be careful if there was a penalty system in place not to penalise allocations which support the children in the school. The allocation of non-pay funding to schools is very tight. We had to reduce capitation several times during the downturn and we have not been in a position to seek to increase it since.