Mr. Michael Culhane:

I have a track record of implementing things in the intervening period. In 2009 I wrote to the Revenue Commissioners seeking charitable status for the sports field company. There are emails about the restaurant staff and redundancy in March 2009. There are emails to Chief Superintendent Nolan seeking an update on the training activities in the Garda College, again from March 2009. There is also an exchange of emails between myself, Mr. Leamy and Mr. McGee about the financial controls in the college from June 2009. There are emails from 2009 about potential tax issues in the college arising from various activities, and again in 2010, also regarding tax. Jumping ahead a bit, we met PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2016. There are more emails between myself and Superintendent Nolan about the report, and then in September further emails about the restaurant, the shop and the sports field company.

During that time as well then, when the recession came and the college closed down for a few years, this item, while not quite put on hold, did not perhaps have the same urgency that it should have had. I was dealing with many other issues at the time. This was not the only item on my agenda that required my time. I had a large number of items to attend to. So there was action in the intervening period as well.