Ms Josephine Feehily:

Our role is extremely limited, just to start from there. The authority was established with effect from 1 January 2016, but actually the members did not meet until 28 January because the members did not know each other. The first several months were taken up with establishing ourselves. The chief executive took up duty in the second half of January. Really, it was well into 2016 before we were established, notwithstanding the commencement date of 1 January.

Somewhere in the early part of 2016 I became aware probably that there were questions and issues in relation to the college. In June or July 2016, I spoke to the chair of the audit committee, with whom the authority has a relationship because the authority appoints the audit committee. It is a function that used to be carried out by the Minister and now the authority does it, so we have a relationship with the chair of the audit committee. I spoke to him around June or July. I have been trying to remember; I do not have a detailed note. In the course of that conversation, I was satisfied that the audit committee was aware of the matter. There was an internal audit under way. I had really no sense of any detail, only that I said, "Fine, there is a process under way". He undertook to keep me posted as the audit progressed.

The next timeline I have is towards 19 or 20 September. Mr. O'Callaghan telephoned me to tell me for the first time about this internal audit because by then the draft audit report had been circulated. It was a courtesy call to simply let us know that it existed because he expected that it might find its way into the media and he did not want us to be surprised.

The following day the deputy commissioner, Mr. Ó Cualáin, contacted the chief executive in similar vein. I briefed the authority informally the following week at our monthly meeting and there it rested because we took the view that an internal audit belongs within the organisation. It was under the auspices of the audit committee. I got one of my colleagues in the authority to contact the Comptroller and Auditor General to confirm the Comptroller and Auditor General's office knew about it. We said the system is working; the machinery is doing what it should be doing. We stepped back until the final audit report was published.

In the intervening months, to be fair to An Garda Síochána, they did offer us some briefing notes in relation to the audit, but we declined. We took the view that we really wanted the final audit report and not to get something just from the management side. We felt that the notes would not have been helpful to us. That is more or less the sequence. The final audit report was then published and immediately, or very shortly, after its publication the Minister for Justice and Equality referred it to the Policing Authority to oversee the implementation of the recommendations and we have been doing that with regular meetings with Mr. Nugent and his team to make sure the implementation of the recommendations is proceeding. I was keeping an eye on this discussion this morning and I was a bit disappointed to hear Mr. Nugent say that the timeline for some of the recommendations is drifting towards the end of the year. While I understand that some of the recommendations are complex they are not all complex and so this was a bit disappointing.

I shall now turn to the next sequence, in the context of the Policing Authority's consideration of this matter. We had our regular meeting in Templemore last month and we were aware that this committee was going to have a series of significant hearings. We were aware that Mr. Kelly was doing a next phase, so we decided that the most prudent thing we could do was to continue to oversee the implementation of the previous recommendations, wait for Mr. Kelly's next instalment and wait for the work of this committee. I am aware that the Comptroller and Auditor General is obviously looking at matters to do with his audit and the appropriation account. We decided to review matters in September to see if there was any other gap that the Policing Authority should involve itself in.