Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 18 May 2023

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statements 2021: University of Limerick

9:30 am

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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It is an internal document, owned by UL and it is a separate process from the Committee of Public Accounts process. This committee has a responsibility to ensure value for money. It also has an obligation to secure, in public, the facts or details of incidents so that people can be held to account publicly. I fully appreciate the legal situation that UL is in and I understand that us asking questions may limit the university's ability to carry a legal argument. However, that is not the concern of this committee; it is the concern of UL and that is part of the difficulty here.

I am going to ask questions regarding the decision that was taken because that is why we are here today. There is a belief, and some would argue it is a fact, that a site was put before the governing authority which was valued in excess of its real market value. Would our guests accept that?