Ms Mary Hurley:

Mayo County Council stated that, in terms of the level of ambition, it had hoped to get this work complete and had drawn down the money in anticipation that it would be completed quickly. We reviewed the projects and I think, as the Comptroller and Auditor General rightly said, there were four and a half of the ten projects where we were deeply concerned and unhappy and we recouped the funding and it was repaid to us. In 2021, a total of €1.25 million was recouped by the Department. There was an element of a sanction relating to the five and a half projects that were proceeding. What we did was absolute day-to-day engagement with Mayo County Council and further checks were undertaken across the programme. Part of the engagement with Mayo County Council was around our concerns regarding whether this issue was across the board, and we have very strong inspection services in the Department, so we did a range of checks across the country.