Mr. Francis O'Donnell:

The rationale for it is that it was 2021 and we were in the middle of a pandemic. As the chief of the organisation, I was asking my staff to stay at home, to work from home and to work from regional bases if possible. We have staff normally based in Dublin, for example, in the research department. They could be from Cork or Waterford. We have seven regional offices. It made absolutely no sense to ask them to come in to headquarters, which was only open once a week at that point. I was living in Donegal. I would only have access to secure IT systems one day a week. At that point in time, I was also paying invoices on behalf of the taxpayer that ranged from €30,000 to €900,000. I did not have a secure system at home to do that.