Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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The first task for the Department was to ensure that the institutions complied with their statutory duties rather than wait as long as two and a half years for the accounts to be submitted to the Department to allow it to begin its inquiries. Mr. Ó Foghlú is stating that the Department will now review the accounts for the period from 1 October 2016 to 30 September 2017, a year and a half ago, and possibly begin raising queries regarding what happened in 2016. It is a little late to be doing that now. The Department should have been doing so all along. A year and a half after year end, nothing should be arriving on Mr. Ó Foghlú's desk from any of these institutions about which he does not already know. What has been happening for the past year and a half such that the Department is now beginning to raise queries? The committee does not accept that there is adequate supervision by the Department if it is only now beginning to ask questions a year and a half after year end.