Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 1 July 2021
Public Accounts Committee
Higher Education Authority: Financial Statements 2019
9:30 am
Dr. Alan Wall:
Yes, in general terms we do. Where universities borrow from European banks, for instance, there is a gearing requirement that we observe.
I wish to make one point in respect of this case. This is not a defensive position. If the university was not applying for capital development work - it was not applying for money for the site but for capital development work in respect of the expansion of the university - then we would not have had any record of this at all. We would have relied on the annual governance statement to disclose the amount and to tell us about the governance arrangements around it. That is consistent with the legislation. From where I am sitting now, that is what I have.