Ms Mary Hurley:

Yes, we had very detailed conversations with Mayo regarding their employees. Obviously it was a hugely serious issue. As I said, the Department took the decision to get the money back, we recovered the public moneys in full plus a sanction, and from our perspective in terms of fraud, looking at our own fraud policy document, there had not been personal gain. Deputy Munster is absolutely right about concern that money not being spent on what it was voted for.

As part of our annual planning in terms of our audits and working with the Local Government Audit Service, we are focused on checking that what was approved is actually what was paid out and delivered.