Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

It states that, due to the retirement of the CDETB internal auditor in December 2016, it was agreed that the internal audit unit for ETBs would provide a service with effect from 2017. The board carried out a recruitment competition and on two occasions failed to fill the post. As an interim measure, the internal audit unit for ETBs has appointed an external resource to undertake internal audits in the board. Effectively, it has been outsourced. The ETB internal audit unit was only in a position to carry out one internal audit in quarter 3 of 2017, in the area of specialist training providers with field work. There was no report for the audit committee in the year and the report on the audit I mentioned was issued in December 2018. The resource that is available to them in the period in question is very light.