Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

The latest correspondence the committee received from the university is indicating that the process is not complete. There is a draft, which was circulated, but there are issues that are holding up the completion of the matter. The Deputy asked if there was any advance on that. It is about a month now since the university wrote to the committee on that. It may have moved on since then, but that was certainly the last position.

With regard to the non-compliant procurement, I draw attention to non-compliant procurement where the total value of it is in excess of €500,000. In one of these cases with one education and training board, ETB, the amount in total was some €850,000, just from memory. It other cases it was €1 million or several million euro. It is of the same order in the University of Limerick. Typically, it will involve multiple suppliers rather than single suppliers. More detail certainly is given in the ETB financial statements in relation to that. It is more aggregated for the university, but there is a good explanation there of what is the type of non-compliant procurement and the circumstances that gave rise to it.