John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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This morning we will engage with the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, to examine its financial statements for 2024. On behalf of the committee, I welcome Mr. Frank O'Connor, chief executive; Mr. Ian Black, chief financial and operating officer; Ms Rebekah Brady, interim director of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund and director of Future Ireland Fund; and Mr. Ciarán Breen, director of the State Claims Agency. We are also joined by officials from the Department of Finance, who are attending in a representative capacity: Mr. Pat Leahy, principal officer and Mr. Oisín Fitzgerald, administrative officer. Finally, we are joined by officials from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, including the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, who is a permanent witness to the committee, and Mr. Leonard McKeown, deputy director of audit.

Before we begin, I will explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. Witnesses are, however, expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Witnesses are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity.

I call the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, to make his opening statement.

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

The National Treasury Management Agency was established in 1990 to manage Ireland's national debt. Since then, it has evolved into a complex multifunction agency managing public assets and liabilities and providing staff and business service supports to some other statutory agencies.

Reflecting its structure and remit, the agency's financial statements are also complex, with segments reflecting transactions related to individual functions. This approach to reporting aids transparency and public accountability in respect of the various functions. To save the committee's time this morning, I do not propose to itemise each of the accounts. Instead, I will draw attention to salient issues that arise from my report on the agency's 2024 accounts, which I am statutorily required to produce, and which are before the committee this morning.

The agency's operating costs are reported upon in the administration account. Net expenditure incurred by the agency in 2024 totalled €145 million. This included expenses totalling just over €51 million incurred in respect of the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, and Home Building Finance Ireland, which are supported operationally by the NTMA. Agency staffing of around 830 whole-time equivalents at the end of 2024 included staff seconded to the three supported bodies.

On the income side, the agency recovers its expenses from the supported agencies and from some of the investment funds it manages. It draws on the Central Fund of the Exchequer to cover the remainder of its costs. In 2024, the agency's Central Fund income totalled €77.2 million.

The NTMA's primary function is to borrow on behalf of the Minister for Finance and to manage Ireland's national debt. At the end of 2024, the national debt stood at €232.6 billion, down marginally from €234.5 billion at the end of 2023. Net debt service costs in 2024 were €3.1 billion. Central government bodies and funds and local authorities routinely lend funds that are not immediately required to the NTMA as a means of managing their cash balances. This constitutes a significant and growing part of the NTMA's short-term borrowing, and amounted to €19.3 billion at end 2024.

The NTMA also engages in lending operations, including of surplus Exchequer cash balances. At the end of 2024, this included €14.9 billion lent short-term to other governments and €5.3 billion in lending to support the operations of the Housing Finance Agency.

The State Claims Agency, which is part of the NTMA, manages legal claims brought against the State and designated State bodies. It also has a risk management role, advising and assisting State bodies in minimising their claims exposures. In addition, it manages legal and other costs liabilities incurred by the State arising from all categories of litigation, including tribunals of inquiry. The 2024 financial statements of the agency record expenditure totalling €534 million, which was subsequently recovered by the agency from the liable State bodies. Of this total, awards and claims settlements amounted to €292 million, while associated expenses totalled €229 million. The State Claims Agency incurred costs of €35 million in respect of its own operating costs, which are accounted for in the NTMA's administration accounts, and represent a charge on the Central Fund. The agency's estimate of the value of claims liabilities outstanding at the end of 2024 was €5.35 billion. Some €4.3 billion of this relates to healthcare claims.

The NTMA also manages a number of substantial statutory investment funds. In July 2024, the agency was assigned two new statutory investment funds to manage. At the end of 2024, the net assets of the new funds comprised €8.45 billion in the Future Ireland Fund and just over €2 billion in the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. The former National Surplus (Exceptional Contingencies) Fund was dissolved in November 2024 after the transfer of its assets to the two new funds.

Separately, the accounts of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund indicate it held around €16.6 billion at the end of 2024, segmented into a "directed" portfolio held at the direction of the Minister for Finance, and a "discretionary" portfolio available for commercial investment. Between 2015 and 2024, the net asset value of the directed investment portfolio fell from €14 billion invested in bank shareholdings to €7.7 billion held mainly in the form of cash and cash equivalents. The drop in net asset value of the fund was due mostly to the sale of bank shareholdings and the transfer of the associated sales proceeds to the Exchequer.

In July 2025, the NTMA received a fraudulent request for an apparent €5 million tranche of investment into the account of an existing Ireland Strategic Investment Fund investee company. The existing NTMA controls intended to prevent such fraudulent requests did not prevent the payment being made. The NTMA reported the matter to An Garda Síochána and is seeking to recover the funds. The chief executive officer will be able to update the committee in that regard.

Finally, the committee may wish to note that the audits of the agency's 2025 accounts were completed two weeks ago, on 29 April 2026, and will be presented in due course.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. McCarthy for that. I invite the chief executive, Mr. O'Connor, to deliver the opening statement on behalf of the NTMA. As I set out in the letter of invitation, he has five minutes to make his opening address.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the invitation to appear today.

I would like to briefly take the committee through the agency's work, and how it has evolved from a single-function agency managing debt to an organisation of significantly increased scale and diversity that borrows, invests, advises and compensates on behalf of the State.

At the agency's inception 35 years ago, we managed a national debt that stood at approximately €30 billion. That was seen as high then, but today it is over €200 billion, and by the 2030s will potentially be approaching €250 billion. While the population and the size of the economy have grown since then, it is still a very high level of indebtedness. That level of debt carries risk. It is not something that we, as debt managers, can afford to be complacent about. The ability to service that debt is critical.

The record low interest rates that arose from quantitative easing in recent years made servicing debt easier and cheaper. Our invitation today was to discuss our 2024 accounts. The annual cost of servicing debt in 2024 was €3.2 billion, some 60% below its peak of €8 billion in 2013. We took advantage of the low interest rate era by locking in low borrowing costs for long terms. We built a debt profile that has one of the longest average maturities in Europe. In addition, we prefunded by borrowing money early at low rates instead of waiting to borrow at higher rates, but that era is over. The benefits of borrowing at low fixed rates will recede, as these lower cost debts gradually mature and are replaced with more expensive debt. We also have to be prepared for rates potentially rising further and the additional costs that would come with that.

Funding and debt management is just one of the responsibilities entrusted to us over the NTMA's lifetime. Our multiple mandates have seen the NTMA take on a wide range of diverse activities. As part of our wider debt portfolio of over €200 billion, we manage €24 billion of retail savings through Ireland State Savings. We invest approximately €30 billion across three sovereign funds – the Irish Strategic Investment Fund, the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund, each with its own specialist mandate.

Through the National Development Finance Agency, we provide project delivery, advisory services and contract management services to State authorities on public infrastructure projects. Through NewERA, we provide corporate finance expertise to Ministers and Departments in relation to 24 commercial State bodies across a range of sectors.

Through the State Claims Agency, we manage over 10,000 claims, with an estimated total liability of over €5 billion, compensating people where they or their families have suffered injuries or losses arising from clinical incidents or other factors. In doing this we strive to get the balance right between managing the State's liability in accordance with our statutory mandate and managing claims in a manner that treats people fairly, ethically and sensitively.

We provide a platform for supporting three affiliates – NAMA, the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland and Home Building Finance Ireland, all of which have separate governance and reporting structures but rely on the NTMA for support services. In the case of NAMA, we have provided that support throughout the 16 years of its existence and are now preparing to take on its residual activity through the proposed NTMA resolution unit.

Developing this scale and diversity has required us to place a significant focus on agility and adaptability; and on being ready to take on new mandates whenever the need arises, including specialist, high-value and time-bound projects like the Apple Ireland escrow fund and the pandemic stabilisation and recovery fund.

I also want to provide an update to the committee today on the incident that took place in 2025 in which the agency received a fraudulent payment request from a third party that was designed and timed to pass as a legitimate request from an ISIF investee. Our focus since this happened has been on three things: getting money back, establishing the facts of what happened and increasing our protection against similar financial crime risks. On recovering money, we previously disclosed the recovery of an initial €1.52 million of the €5 million stolen in the incident. I can disclose today that we have since recovered more money, bringing the total net recovery to €2.5 million. We are continuing our recovery efforts.

In terms of establishing the facts of what happened, as we said at the time of the incident, there was no compromise of the NTMA's IT systems. However, we commissioned Deloitte to conduct an independent forensic investigation to establish the facts and to examine relevant internal controls. That work is now complete. We also engaged from the outset with the Comptroller and Auditor General on the issue.

To increase our protection against similar financial crime risks, as one would expect, we put in place enhanced controls immediately after the incident. Deloitte's investigation also recommended certain key measures to increase protection against similar financial crime risks, which we have implemented in full.

Finally, I would like to conclude with some comments on the long-term approach we take in carrying out our mandates. in terms of both managing the debt we issue and the assets we invest. We have a long track record of issuing debt with maturities of many decades and planning for that debt maturing over time and falling due for repayment. The Future Ireland Fund, which is being invested with a long-term horizon of 2041 and beyond, is another example of taking a long-term approach. That ability to take a long-term view, on both sides of Ireland's balance sheet, is resonating with the investors that buy Ireland's debt and with ratings agencies. Many of them cite this strong long-term approach as a major strength that demonstrates Ireland's commitment to prudently managing debt and to putting money from today aside for the future, to enhance the resilience of our economy and our public finances. This approach sends out a positive signal that adds to the confidence that investors show in Ireland. It generates a reputational return as well as a financial one. That concludes my opening remarks.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. O'Connor for that. I will open up the floor to members. The lead speaker is Deputy Farrelly, who has 15 minutes, while all other members have ten minutes. If time permits, we will allow members back in for a short supplementary round of questions. We will also suspend the meeting at about 12.30 p.m. for a short break of ten or 15 minutes and resume thereafter.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank Mr. O'Connor and his colleagues very much for being here this morning. They are most welcome. I will dive right in if that is okay because of the limited time. In 2024, the State Claims Agency paid settlements, awards and expenses totalling €521 million. What percentage of this figure was paid in out-of-court settlements?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I might pass the question to Ciarán.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Roughly 59% of the total portfolio of cases are settled outside of court – without going to court at all or any proceedings taking place.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is that due to an internal decision being made or is it based on legal advice?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes. As the cases develop, we take legal advice from barristers, just like plaintiffs would. They reach a point where both sides decide that they would engage in negotiations and settle the cases, often through mediation or just generally by way of meeting, for example, at the Law Library.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Has the 59% level been a trend over the past five years or has there been an increase in that approach?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No, it is pretty much level. If we look back over the last couple of years, that kind of figure is pretty much the mean.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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What was the sum for out-of-court settlements in 2024?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I have not broken it down that way. I just have the total amount of settlements from all sources. At a later stage I can get that information to the Deputy if he likes.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Yes, please. Some 59% of €521 million would probably be around €260 million or maybe €270 million. Would that be fair enough?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is Mr. Breen saying that has been pretty consistent over the last five years? There has not been a change in approach.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Not really, no, except that mediation is much more a feature of what we do than it used to be. Over that five years we have seen mediation increase. For example, prior to the pandemic we paid damages following mediation in about 5% of clinical cases and we are at about 46% now.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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What would Mr. Breen put that change down to?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Pre-pandemic, there was probably a lack of willingness on the part of plaintiffs to engage with mediation. It just was not popular. During the pandemic, when people could not meet, we organised remote mediations because we felt the system should not stop and that people should be compensated. We offered it as an alternative. Very quickly that caught on with plaintiffs' solicitors, so post-pandemic it has become much more a feature of what we do.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is it seen as a more attractive approach for plaintiffs or potentially a more lucrative approach? Is settling ultimately altering the sum of the mean?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No, definitely not. The settlements agreed at mediation are similar to settlements agreed under any other guise. What it does offer is an environment in which both sides can work through a mediator.

If an apology has to be given, an apology is given in that process. It is a gentler, easier process. It is not as fraught as, for example, the steps of the court.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Sure. I thank Mr. Breen. I will ask specifically with regard to current and serving and also former Air Corps members. How many outstanding cases are open within the State Claims Agency regarding current or former Air Corps members?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Originally, we had 11 of those claims. We settled one claim. Following that claim, we received 13 more. Therefore, we have 24 cases now.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Are they at various stages of process? When would the earliest of those 20 have been opened?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

In the case we settled, for example, my recollection is that proceedings were served in 2014 and the case was settled in 2025. The other cases are at different levels of engagement and readiness and so on.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Would there be others from that 2014 era?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I guess many of them would probably date back to that date and maybe dates after that.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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In Mr. Breen's expertise, why would a case to be ongoing that long?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

When I answer this, I am not being critical at all of, obviously, when I say this but sometimes a plaintiff is in a very complex action like that because we are dealing with exposure to chemicals and generally an environment that alleges toxicity. Therefore, there are complex issues of liability and causation for both sides. If we add in discovery to that as well, we can see why we would get delays of, certainly, a good number of years. In the particular case that we settled, there were periods of relative inactivity. When I say that, I just mean legally. I am quite sure there was a lot of work being done in the background.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Maybe it is not as simple as asking in whose court the ball lies for those cases, but does Mr. Breen think that would be with the State Claims Agency right now or would it be with the plaintiffs?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

When a plaintiff sues, really, the ball lies largely with the plaintiff, but we do not rely on that. What we try to do, wherever we can, if we acknowledge that the State has a liability, is try to make an approach ourselves and ask, if both sides are ready, whether we can settle this case on terms that are acceptable to both parties.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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What is the figure then for settlements expenses for 2025?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

The Deputy might bear with me for one second. For both schemes, that is, the clinical indemnity scheme and general indemnity scheme, it was €445 million.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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That is a significant reduction from €521 million from 2024. Is that correct?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

In 2024, the similar sum was €461 million, so it has come down slightly for 2025. That is updating the Deputy with the 2025 figures.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Are we similar in terms of that 59% settlement? Is Mr. Breen saying we are on track for a similar case?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Exactly.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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For both of those years, is that figure totally inclusive of all legal fees?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

That is inclusive of all costs, including legal fees and expert costs. That is transactional. When I give the Deputy those figures, that means that in that particular year, it is not only in relation to damages that we paid in individual cases and legal costs. It is also costs associated with the ongoing management of cases.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank Mr. Breen. I have a question with regard to ISIF. It was announced in December 2025 that ISIF was committing €150 million to Avenue Capital Group. Who is Avenue Capital Group?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Avenue Capital Group is a UK-based fund manager that is at the minute one of the primary suppliers of funding to Castlehaven. The original rationale for ISIF's investment was to provide a source of funding into the Irish market for homebuilding.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Could Ms Brady take me through it in very basic terms? We commit €150 million - is that a loan or an investment? What is that in simple terms?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

From ISIF's perspective in general, we commit in lots of different ways but predominantly via funds as the way to bring external capital into it as well and amplify the capital available in the Irish market. With respect to homebuilding, we have had a number of significant initiatives over the last while. There have been well-discussed issues, particularly on the equity side and the debt side as well for Irish homebuilders. We have worked with a number of different partners to find ways to get money into the Irish market on a commercial basis for ISIF that will have both that commercial return plus the economic impact and, in this case, it is to do with house building.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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What would Ms Brady be expecting to return for that €150 million?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

I am sorry; for each individual fund, there are expected returns that on a risk-adjusted basis determine whether we are comfortable making the investment or not. Given that this is a private entity and there are other investors involved, from our perspective, we take positions that are commensurate with the risks to which the funds are exposed.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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So, what does ISIF expect to-----

Ms Rebekah Brady:

We do not give out expected return numbers for any of our investments, but it is part of our due diligence process. The returns come through on an annual basis in the financial accounts. Our returns are then published when they all return back.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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ISIF gives €150 million to Avenue Capital Group and then, with that money, it is telling Avenue Capital Group to go and build houses and apartments in Ireland.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

In this particular case, the funding is provided on into homebuilders, so they are not actually building the houses themselves.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Correct. Then, the question that I ask is, are we running into state aid problems here whereby we are using State money to go towards homebuilders when we also have Home Building Finance Ireland, which is an entity owned solely by the Minister for Finance? Are we potentially in breach or putting question marks over state aid investment in the private market?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

How ISIF approaches investing for every single investment that we make is that we get a state aid view and analysis so that we do not breach our legislation from a state aid perspective. There are numerous sources and providers of funding into homebuilding in Ireland, most or all of which are needed at this point in time. ISIF's role is as a commercial investor, so it is slightly different. The second part of our role is to crowd in third-party capital as well to amplify what is available but to the state aid point, in particular, to every investment we make-----

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Ms Brady is confident there is no-----

Ms Rebekah Brady:

-----we have a state aid analysis conducted.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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If I am being too simplistic Ms Brady should please tell me, but is Avenue Capital Group simply not just a middleman we do not need in this kind of environment where that €150 million could go directly towards building schemes in Ireland through the other entity?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

The way that ISIF has approached investment, again, to bring in that third-party capital as well is through this fund structure. We do it across all them. Homebuilding is one example but for credit and private equity, we tend to take this approach in that it kind of brings in the expertise that is needed to oversee whether it is loans or investments that are being made where we would be constrained from a resource perspective and the deployment of the level of capital that we have. Therefore, by using fund managers who are expert in whatever field it is that they are investing into, it is the most efficient way to get the capital out and get third-party capital in.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I thank Ms Brady very much. In the time that I have, with the €5 million that was fraudulently taken from the organisation last year, how much of that does Mr. O'Connor expect to ultimately recoup?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The update today was to confirm the €2.5 million net. Obviously, it is getting trickier the more time passes by because of action taken in the early days. When I appeared before the committee the first time, we had €1.52 million back. The Deputy might ask whether we would get any more but, in fact, we continue to chase and we can confirm that some came in this year through that process, so we are not giving up on it. However, through the passage of time, it will get trickier. The work we have done has helped get that return. It may take longer for the criminal investigation to go on and on and maybe it could be later that something comes in at the tail end. I do not want to set expectations too high, but we will continue to-----

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Is Mr. O'Connor not expecting to see that figure rising in the short-term?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Not in the next short while, but we have not given up yet.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Had the audit and risk committee flagged this as a potential concern in advance of this activity happening? Have there ever been worries that this could take place?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

There are always worries, I suppose, given the nature of what we do and the volume. As we said at the committee last summer, in some years, we do more than half a trillion in payments, so we are very active and we are also a target. The approach to risk is to first identify the risk, then try to mitigate it and put the controls in place. There are many controls between resources, systems and so on. We then test those through a third line of defence and audit that. We have regular audits across the organisation to try to test for that.

Potential fraud would be in all our risk registers, and we are always trying to keep pace with what is happening. Unfortunately, the controls at this juncture did not stand up to the threat actors, who managed to gather non-public information - quite a bit. That is a struggle, but yes, it would be on the risk registers. We try to mitigate that and make sure it does not happen, but, of course, it has on this occasion.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I am not going to ask Mr. O'Connor to spell out the detail of it, because we do not want to put that out there. Is it an isolated incident, from Mr. O’Connor's perspective? Has this happened in the last five years, or is this the only time it has happened?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

No, not in terms of a fraud. The agency is 35 years old. I have been in the agency for 16 years. Events happen, but as to a fraud of this significance, no, not in the last five years. I am not even aware of any particular monetary fraud, thankfully. We hope to keep it that way. The intention is to design our systems and try to keep pace with what threat actors can do.

Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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Does the NTMA accept all of the recommendations from the Deloitte report? Does it intend to action those?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

To give a short description, yes, we accepted them, and we have implemented them all. To be perfectly honest, it will not surprise the Deputy that the controls we put in immediately after an incident were very similar to some of the recommendations, and then it is about bottoming out the two suites of it. We probably went beyond that. You have to get into a state where you can get on with the business. As I said, we have many payments. We are now back into the steady state, but we have to stay vigilant.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for being here. I am very conscious of the work the NTMA does and the level of complexity that it involves. Managing the country's national debt, ISIF and the State Claims Agency are three really important, difficult jobs. I appreciate the work that the NTMA is doing because it is a very important job. It is behind the scenes, it is not seen, and it probably does not get celebrated enough for the serious importance that it has.

With that, I want to start by talking about the national debt. Mr. O’Connor can correct me if I am wrong, but it is currently sitting at approximately €230 billion.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, we can call it national debt or gross debt, but that is approximately it.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The biggest risk facing our country in terms of unexpected expenditure is the management of interest rate risk. Can Mr. O’Connor tell me the debt profile that the NTMA is currently carrying? How much of the debt is on a fixed interest rate or on a floating rate? Can Mr. O’Connor explain what would happen if rates went up 1% or 2%? How much would that cost the country? How much of a runway does the NTMA have in front of it? I understand that it did very well to reduce the debt cost from €8 billion to €3.4 billion. That is fantastic because it allows us to spend the money on public services for people. How much runway does the NTMA have here?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I thank the Deputy for his comments. As a debt manager, not surprisingly, I want to say that we never want to become complacent, but there is some good news in the statistics, and then there is the cautionary tale. The good news is that Ireland's debt has fallen in the last few years, and from a debt ratio point of view, we are in good shape. To give an example, Ireland went from low 20% debt to GDP to 120% at the time of the crisis, and it is back in the mid-30s. However, we all know that GDP flatters Ireland, so we need to use GNI*. That went to 163% at the top of the crisis, but it is back to 60%. From a debt ratio perspective, there are many countries in Europe that would like to be in our position. That is the first point.

Second, in terms of exposure to interest rates, the good news is that the entire portfolio is effectively fixed, like a fixed-rate mortgage. When we borrow, we borrow fixed.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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How long are those notes?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The average life of our debt is about ten years, which is one of the longest in Europe - that is the average. Yesterday, we tapped an old 20-year bond at 17 years - the green bond - and we raised €2 billion. We issued debt in 30-year bonds last year during the low rates. We issued our first 30-year bond in 2015. We went to the market again during Covid, when rates were even lower for 30-year bonds. We issued some 100-year notes in the background, probably over €2 billion, which people did not see when we were asked in those times for €100 million or €200 million. The good news is that it is fixed. If you borrow on short-term markets for short-term cash buffers and so on, that means repricing more often, but predominantly, we are not even doing that at the moment because we took a cautionary approach. The majority of the debt is fixed, just to tell the Deputy that.

What does that mean? I will come to the Deputy's example. It means that while our interest bill continues to climb, it is only going to go up gradually, and we have said this for many years. By the time it comes to 2030-----

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Unless the State were to borrow a huge amount of money at a high rate to handle some sort of a crisis, we are not going to see the national debt cost, and the service cost of that, rising any time soon.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, what we have bought is time. We will see a gradual increase. For example, the average rate on the debt at the moment is 1.5%.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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From Mr. O’Connor's perspective, does he believe that we still have too much debt, or is he happy with the level of debt that is currently there?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The Oireachtas decides the level of debt in terms of running a budget surplus or a budget deficit. There are two messages. One is that we are in a very good position. We have bought the State time. During Covid, we were in a better position, and the State was able to borrow to respond. What I would say to the Deputy is that it buys time. The rates will gradually increase. Even though we borrowed at 3.64% yesterday, that is the highest we have borrowed at for that amount of money since 2013. That is a reminder that rates are going up, but that will only move the interest dial a little bit over the next while because we have more than €200 billion. That is very important.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I want to move on to the next issue. This really shocked me. It concerns the €5 million payment that was made by the NTMA to somebody who was a potential investment recipient. Can Mr. O’Connor explain whether the NTMA has established the facts of what happened there?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. Can Mr. O’Connor share any of the detail with us?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I will share some of the detail, notwithstanding a criminal investigation and our efforts at recovery, plus we do not want to give threat actors every step of our process. However, I will explain. Obviously, on this occasion, the standard of our controls did not meet this, and the payment was released. The additional information from the last time is that our investee company had a breach of its email systems. It had a breach. It was compromised. It is called business email compromise. That allowed a threat actor to be in that email for a period of time and then send, from a valid email to us, a valid instruction for capital. At each step of our process, as people asked questions, naturally, they had enough information to persuade us.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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How did the NTMA uncover that the money had gone to the wrong person?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Here is another very important part. The people involved in the payment process, and one of the employees - I do not want to identify anybody because we all know who is in payments and in ISIF - discovered the next day, in conversation, that the capital had not gone to the investee company. The important thing is that the minute they saw that, they told us, because if they did not, our ability to go and follow the money - the Deputy can imagine how fast the money got moved - would have been reduced.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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How does the NTMA even go about recovering 50% of the money? I know it has recovered €2.5 million and is hoping to recover more. This is a really scary incident. While this was €5 million, which is a huge sum of money, the NTMA, ISIF and other entities are dealing in much bigger sums. What would happen if something bigger were to go wrong? Is Mr. O’Connor confident that something like this will not happen again? My concern, when I heard this story, was that it had to be an inside job. Somebody had to have known. How did they intercept this? I would be curious as to how the hell this happened. Is Mr. O’Connor confident that something like this will not happen again? How did the NTMA recover the €2.5 million, and how does it plan to recover the next €2.5 million?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The Deputy has asked a few questions there. First, in terms of being confident about anything in life and giving a guarantee that nothing could ever happen again, that is nigh on impossible. What I can do is highlight our response to it, the controls we have and the controls we have implemented, but we have to stay vigilant. That is on the first piece.

On the ability to recover it, the staff spotting the mistake and saying "There is a problem here" was sufficient. Obviously, the Deputy will respect that I cannot get into a lot of detail on the recovery. As to what we did, we make a lot of payments around the world. We have a lot of counterparts. We have a lot of people we can-----

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I am going to finish on this topic. Can Mr. O’Connor confirm that it was the case that the NTMA got scammed, and it was not that the NTMA was complicit in this?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I was going to come to that. It will not surprise anybody here that, when we got Deloitte in to look at the facts of what happened and the controls and process we had, they had to check - not that we suspected it - but they had to check forensically whether anybody in the NTMA colluded in it or did something deliberate or whatever. I can categorically say that is not the case, and we-----

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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It is vitally important that it comes out of here today that it was not somebody internally who caused this. However, it is critically important that the NTMA ensures it does not get caught by something like this again. Regarding the controls procedure to verify, if a payment request was received from a person to whom a payment had never been made before, surely somebody would have rung the investee to confirm the payment request or to check the details for such a large payment. If I got an email looking for an invoice for €5 million out of my entity, I would not just pay it to a new person. Had that investee received money previously?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, the year before.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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So there were different bank details?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

That is right.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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How did that not get picked up?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Because the request came from a legitimate email. It is not unusual, when there is a relationship over years with an investee, that they would look for different bank details.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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For large amounts of money, if I want to send money to somebody, I have to use the card reader and I have to verify the account I am sending it to. How did the money get sent to an account that was not verified within the NTMA's system?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Because of the process over and back to the investing company. We had what they call a man in the middle that had a valid email coming over and back. One of the failures is a further independent check of that process.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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No, that is a sickener because to have got done like that is just unfortunate. My last question is to the State Claims Agency. In 2024, it spent €229 million on legal fees and witnesses. Is that correct?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

The €229 million was in respect of damages, legal costs and associated costs.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. I was under the impression that the €229 million was on legal fees and expert witnesses. Is that correct, C and AG?

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Sorry?

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Do I have that wrong? What was the total bill for legal expenses and witness expenses for 2024 in the State Claims Agency?

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

I think the figure I gave was €229 million. Yes, €229 million is the associated expenses-----

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. Can I just ask-----

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

-----and €292 million are the compensation payments.

Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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How much did the legal advice paid for by the State Claims Agency reduce the liability to the State? If €229 million was spent on legal advice, how much did the outstanding liability to the State go down?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We must bear in mind that the amounts we are paying are paid not just in respect of our own legal costs, but also in respect of the plaintiff's legal costs. It is extremely hard to judge exactly and to be able to give the Deputy a figure and say it is 20% or 30%. The reality is that cases are complex, large sums are sought and there are agreements. Ultimately, what we are there to do is to ensure that claims are settled at the lowest achievable level. That is what we endeavour to do every day in all the claims work we transact, and I hope we are doing that. Very often, we get, for example, requests for €30 million or €35 million that we settle for probably €10 million and so on.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in to answer our questions. I intended today to talk about the State Claims Agency, but I just want to touch on the invoice supplier fraud. We know that this, like as has been described, is really common across the SME industry. I am a solicitor and it is something that I am very familiar with in any organisation making and receiving payments. A simple step for anyone who has a small business, or any business, is to verbally confirm new bank details, if possible. I know it is an old-fashioned step, and earlier we were discussing that sometimes going back to an old-fashioned way is actually the best way, especially when huge sums of money, like €5 million, are involved. It is a matter of picking up the phone to someone you know to check bank details. That is really a message to business owners around the country and it is to be hoped people will be more aware of invoice supplier fraud. It is shocking that our national treasury was a victim. It is a rookie mistake. It is something small organisations have been on the ball with, definitely in the past decade. For anyone making or receiving payments, it has been on our radar. I am shocked but it is a lesson for everyone who is interested and watching it to beware of invoice supplier fraud, especially in an organisation making or receiving payments.

Today I want to talk about the State Claims Agency. I want to raise concerns regarding the handling and sharing of highly sensitive personal and medical information in the context of anticipated litigation involving vulnerable children and families. Following the findings of the Data Protection Commission, DPC, against the Department of Health arising from the autism dossiers controversy, there remains considerable public concern about how information is gathered, shared and retained across the State system. Given the enormous level of State exposure in catastrophic maternity and cerebral palsy claims, it is important to establish clearly what role the State Claims Agency plays in the requesting, receipt and use of such information and whether lessons arising from the DPC findings against the Department of Health have been learned. Did the State Claims Agency request any of the information that later became the subject of the Data Protection Commission findings against the Department of Health in relation to these maternal cases?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Did the agency provide guidance, templates or categories of information sought from the Department of Health, HSE or hospitals in relation to anticipated litigation?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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At what stage does the State Claims Agency become aware of potential catastrophic maternity or asphyxiation claims? A lot of the time, it might be known a claim may be in the offing if a family puts in, for example, a subject access request for a file for a child or for a mother. At that stage does the State Claims Agency become aware?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No, not necessarily. There have been many occasions where a mother, in relation to an infant who has suffered, for example, a medical negligence injury, would request her records and they would be supplied directly by the hospital to the person, so we would not know.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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In cases where there is no solicitor and no pre-litigation correspondence and a family submits a subject access request, is there any case where the hospital might inform the State Claims Agency?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Mostly they do not because, for example, a person could be looking for the records for many different reasons unrelated to litigation. When we would get involved, normally it would be a letter of claim.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. Has the agency ever received information before proceedings were formally issued in any case?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We have what is called the national incident management system. I do not know if the Deputy is aware of it but effectively it allows every State authority - the HSE, An Garda Síochána, the Prison Service, etc. - to notify us of adverse events. Therefore, on the clinical side, we would be notified by a hospital of adverse events. One of those adverse events might be, for example, suspected cerebral palsy or catastrophic injury or whatever. State authorities are under an obligation to tell us about their adverse events.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Can the State Claims agency look into this register of adverse events at any stage? Is that how it would work?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We have to examine it and that is part of all that we do. For example, our risk management teams look at incident surveillance to inform what they are going to do on the risk side in terms of risk prevention.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Has there ever been a request from the State Claims Agency to ensure that better information is submitted from the Department of Health into this register?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

It is the HSE largely; it is not the Department. We are working with all of the hospitals, and one of the things we done recently is the electronic point of entry. This allows somebody in a ward to advise of an adverse event so that we become aware of it. As I say, this goes back to the Act, that they are statutorily obliged to do that.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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A lot of information, I presume, can be recorded, not just the adverse event, or does it just stick to the adverse event?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes, it is very much the adverse event. We get notified of something serious that may have happened. If we feel there is a requirement to do so, it allows us to follow up with the hospital or State authority concerned.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is there ever any information submitted on the portal that is over and above what is required?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No, it follows a particular format. If someone is notifying an adverse event, there are preset screens which have to be filled out.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Do families know that their event has been put onto the portal?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I honestly do not know. I guess that in many instances hospitals say it under open disclosure. We also have to notify this to the State Claims Agency.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have never heard of a family being told that.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

They may not be. I do not know, factually, what happens in hospitals.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Has Mr. Breen's agency had any involvement with the DPC on the sharing of information from the Department of Health in relation to those?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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On prize bonds and State savings, I will address Mr. O'Connor. When people are administering estates, for instance, there may be historic prize bonds or State savings accounts. There is sometimes difficulty finding out exactly how much is involved, particularly when the certificates are missing or the holdings are historical. Many of us, when we were born, would have received a prize bond worth £5 or whatever. What system does the NTMA currently use to maintain records of prize bond and State savings holders? Is that system fully digitised?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Prize bonds date back to 1957. Since 1989, An Post and Fexco in Killorglin have looked after prize bonds for the State. In recent years, we have tried to digitise the entire State savings platform. If you sign up for it, you can see your fixed-rate products and prize bonds, check for winnings, etc. The Deputy is right about cases involved the deceased. Many people write in following the loss of a parent, etc. I had personal experience of this. It is a regular occurrence that they write in through solicitors or whatever to say where the person lived their entire life, their name and maiden name, and the guys will go through that to try to discover details on the person.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is that a digitalised system they are going through or are they going through paper files?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I want to be careful here. It is a while since I was involved in managing State savings, even before we went digital. All the prize bond numbers, etc., have been digitised, but whether people have signed up, perhaps there are some of those-----

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am talking about old ones where people have not signed up and they are just waving around-----

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

All the records are there, and they do not go dormant. If you write to the prize bond company-----

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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As a solicitor, I find that if you do not have the documents, it is sometimes more difficult. They seem to be struggling to get information back to people.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

That is fair. One of the tricky things there, as I am sure the Deputy knows, is to establish the accuracy of who is writing. If people have not interacted in ten or 20 years, they probably have no anti-money laundering document that is up to date. They must get accuracy. People have similar names in Ireland. Over the years, when people send out information on prize bonds or State savings and a family member gets it or it goes to another address, that is never an easy-----

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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With dormant accounts or dormant prize bonds, what happens to the funds?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Prize bonds do not become dormant. Bank accounts over 15 years-----

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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There might be some prize bonds from the foundation of the State that have not been activated. What happens in that situation after, say, 100 years?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

They are in the funding of the State but they are an obligation of the State any time anybody claims them.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is it realistic that we have a dormant prize bond after 100 years?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I can come back to the Deputy with the exact detail. Dormant accounts go dormant after 15 years. You can go to your bank. Many dormant accounts are claimed quite quickly afterwards. For prize bonds, there are even winnings that have not been claimed. When somebody wins, we write to them and then write again six months later and put articles in the newspapers to say that there are winnings. The easiest thing, if anybody wants to write in and give all their details and please-----

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Should the State recoup them after a certain period? Would that be sensible to put in legislation?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It is people's money; it is not the State's money. It is the same with dormant accounts. People can come for dormant-----

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Should we have a period after which the money is-----

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

There will be lots of opinions, but I do not think so. It is citizens' money rather than the State's money. It is on our balance sheet and we need to mind it.

Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I wanted to ask about AIB but I will leave it till the end. Thank you very much.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Thank you, Deputy.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in. Will someone explain what is the NTMA's direct link with NAMA? NAMA is coming in here in a few weeks. What is the witnesses' link with or responsibility for NAMA now?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

NAMA is one of our affiliates. It was set up many years ago. We call it an affiliate because NAMA has its own board. It has its own chair, CEO and board members. The chair of the NTMA sits as an ex officio on the NAMA board, which I do and my predecessor did. NAMA staff are NTMA staff. That is the support we provide to it. That includes all staff that have been through NAMA and the number that are left.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Will some of the key NAMA staff be coming back into the NTMA?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Once NAMA has been dissolved, the NTMA resolution unit has been established. I might get Mr. Black to comment, because it is going in under his area. He was recently at the committee for the pre-legislative scrutiny. There will be eight people from NAMA coming to run the resolution unit.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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What is the salary of the CEO of NAMA?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The salary of the CEO of NAMA is published in its accounts because he is an Accounting Officer. I think it is €430,000.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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What job will he have?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Mr. McDonagh, as he said at one of the committees, will return to the NTMA. He will not be part of the resolution unit. He is an NTMA employee and has been since way before NAMA. He will return, obviously not as chief executive, but as a senior experienced executive.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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That is a lot of money to be paying someone who is not going to be a senior executive.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

When he is not the Accounting Officer, Mr. McDonagh will come back to an individual contract in the NTMA.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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So will he have a lower salary.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I will not talk about individual staff members - not Mr. McDonagh or any of the other 800.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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They are all paid State employees. Mr. O'Connor just referenced the salary.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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So he does not know, is the answer. It is not fully clear.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I am not in a position to comment. We have obligations as an employer to individuals.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Mr. O'Connor referenced his salary, so he has no problem referencing the salary. It is public information, no doubt. Just for clarity, we do not know the position. We do not know what salary he will be coming back in on, is what Mr. O'Connor is saying. That is fine. I do not mind. We are not clear on that. How many salaries will be above that of a Cabinet Minister? What is the salary of a Cabinet Minister? Is it €250,000? How many salaries would be above that?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

We can get the Deputy the figures from the 2024 annual report. In line with the code of practice for Government bodies, we publish a table of the ranges of all salaries in the annual report. It is on page 76, if the Deputy has the 2024 report, or we can confirm it. The table is there. Over €400,000, there is only myself, the chief executive.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I said over €250,000

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Eight.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Eight people earn more than that amount. Okay. That is a lot of people. Are they paid bonuses?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

If there is any performance-related pay, it is in that number. It is included on top of the salary in that number. There is also information on the total amount paid in bonuses, the highest bonus, the lowest, the average and the gender split.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Do most staff receive bonuses?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

About 33%.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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That is fine. To change pace, does the NTMA have oversight of individual ISIF investments?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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How many of those ISIF investments are underperforming?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

We have a red-amber-green approach to every individual investment. We have over 250 individual line items and each has its own expected returns and risk parameters and economic-----

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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So that is 250 different investments, is it?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Different line items, yes. Some of them could be funds and some could be direct investments.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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How many of them are in the red?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

The benchmark we use is when less than 15% of them are in the red. At the minute, it is under 15%. That is the benchmark we use internally.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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What does orange denote?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

For each investment, prior to investment, we have an expected return. Orange is if they are at any point at less than 50% of that expected return. They are not necessarily in the red, under water or worth less than the money we put in.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Orange is still not performing in line with expectations. How many are at orange?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Sorry, it is orange and red that are at less than 15%.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Okay. So the NTMA is happy enough that 85% are in line with expectations.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

We would prefer them all to be in line with expectations.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I know but 85% is not a bad hit rate. Has the NTMA ever questioned any of ISIF's individual investments?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Yes, all of them all the time.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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No, I mean from a morality point of view or as to whether it should invest. Does the NTMA have a role in checking what its funds are investing in?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

We do.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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If it is investing in an area or country the NTMA is not happy with, does the NTMA have a role in that?

If it is with a product or company it is not happy with, does the NTMA have oversight of that?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Before we go into every investment, we run a role-----

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I know, but I am talking about the NTMA into ISIF.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

From the perspective of ISIF, yes, the investment-----

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I know ISIF does, but what about from the NTMA into ISIF? I just want to clarity.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

That is no problem. In terms of the governance structure, ISIF is part of the NTMA; it is one of the mandates of the NTMA. Under Statute, there is an investment committee for ISIF. It is a subcommittee of the board that reports to the agency board, and certain decisions have a scale that can go beyond the investment committee and up to the board. ISIF sits within the NTMA; it is part of the NTMA structure.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Mr. O'Connor is saying it is in NTMA oversight.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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That is fine; I just wanted to check. I want to jump into the payments. There was one question I did not hear being answered. Who authorised the payment of the €5 million?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It will not surprise the Deputy that there are obviously several people involved in the process and a segregation of duties, but I will not go into any individual person, or name or identify any person.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Is there even a role?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

There are several people.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Even just the physical payment.

Mr. Ian Black:

The payment was done through SWIFT. It was an electronic payment, so it would have gone through several individuals.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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How many individuals? I have authorised tonnes of payments myself.

Mr. Ian Black:

It would have gone through around six people.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Six different people authorised the payment.

Mr. Ian Black:

Yes, at various stages.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Was it done as part of a batch of payments or was it a one-off payment?

Mr. Ian Black:

No, that was an individual payment.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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One individual payment of €5 million was authorised by six individual people at different times.

Mr. Ian Black:

There are different control checks doing different jobs.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It failed six controls. It went through six individual checkpoints.

Mr. Ian Black:

It went through the process and, yes, it was not stopped. As I said, we have enhanced our controls-----

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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No, I get that. I am just asking about the process, that is all. There were six different people, where the payment would have been put up, authorised and gone through six different times, but nobody went in and checked if it was right.

Mr. Ian Black:

People checked it, but again, it was not effective.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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They did not check it properly.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

There are many steps, and I suppose the Deputy is right and that is part of the problem. We did not stop it, and that is on us, but one of the problems was the compromise of the investee in having substantial non-public information to be able to answer questions and make everything look like a legitimate capital call. However, it did go through our process, and we failed to stop it.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Has this happened before?

Mr. Ian Black:

No.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

No.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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It has never happened before. What do the witnesses think made this one so different? I am sure they have had similar situations.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Mr. Black might be able to talk on that in a minute. There may have been a payment in another part of the business, for example, to a solicitor. I am not trying to say there has not been anything, but there has been nothing on the scale of a fraud or payment like this. What was different this time was the amount of information the threat actor had in order to be able to persuade and get past each of the steps.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Is that because he had been involved with the NTMA before?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

No, I do not know who the threat actor is. The investee was compromised, so whoever the threat actor was got non-public information and sent instruction to us from a valid email account.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Essentially, the NTMA was compromised because someone else was compromised.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Exactly.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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The NTMA is obviously at risk then from people who have access to all its clients.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

We all face cyber risk in different jurisdictions, but the onus is on us and our side because you can try managing it and everything else-----

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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You can control your staff, but you cannot control somebody else's.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Absolutely.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Obviously, it is an external risk that becomes very internal.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, exactly.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Changing things again, and going back to corporation tax, on the management of our national funds, how does the NTMA feel about the corporation tax and the money we are getting in, and how would it model into the future in the short-term, if there was a variance with that?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Obviously, there has been much written about the corporation tax - the size of it, the growth of it and the concentration. The economics unit of the Department of Finance - I know there are colleagues here - does a lot of modelling. They often talk about some of it being transitory, hence the reason why the Government has decided to put some of that surplus away for the future.

The message I was given is to remember not to lose the corporate memory of the past, and make sure we do not leave ourselves exposed. I do not know if the Department wants to comment, but much of that analysis is done by the Department.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I have one last question. The witness said there is a national debt of €250 billion. Who is the majority of that owed to? Is it independent funds? Where are those funds based, in broad strokes, and is there any national government that has any significant part of that?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

That is a great question, Deputy. To clarify, the current debt is just over €200 billion and has been declining. If you look at the forecast, in the 2030s it may reach a quarter of a trillion. The vocabulary changes from billion to trillion, which is an important checkpoint for everybody to remember, but it is not €250 billion at present. That is the first piece. In fact, our net debt position is stronger, because we have several assets that qualify there.

As regards who owns it, the only time you get sight of who buys your debt, generally, is around syndications. We had a syndicate tap a €2 billion yesterday, and you get to see broadly who buys it, bar when they publicly declare. Yesterday's deal is a very good example of who buys. Almost 40% of yesterday's transaction was bought by bank treasuries, mostly around Europe. We had official institutions like central banks around the world buying about 13% or 15%. You also had asset managers and pension funds around the world buying our debt, so that is the kind of broad swathe. Hedge funds are another participant in the market. They might have got two or three. They might bid for lots, but they got 2% or 3% of the transaction. It is that broad swathe of where there are pockets of capital, such as central banks, bank treasuries, pension funds, asset managers, fund managers, etc.

By the way, to the Deputy's first question he asked regarding where all the money comes from, over 90% of our debt is funded from people around the world, which is why that very open economy of Ireland-----

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Is there any risk that China, for example, could control a significant amount of debt? Would the NTMA even know?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It would be very hard to establish, but-----

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Basically, you would not know.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

-----I can tell the Deputy that from what I have seen through all the transactions, and I have been in the NTMA for 16 years, when we do get to see, it is a broad swathe. We are very highly regarded. We borrow 20 basis points, 0.2% over Germany, and are double A-rated, so there is a very strong universe of holders of Irish debt.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome everybody here today. Following on from Deputy Neville's questioning on wages and staffing, it seems to be a fantastic place to work when there are so many staff on such high salaries. Would I be correct in saying the salaries the witnesses are paid are much higher than civil servants in most other parts of Government?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Looking at the data, the NTMA was set up 35 years ago and was designed to be a market-based private sector model to get people in to manage the asset liabilities of the State, so, yes, you would say that.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Does Mr. O'Connor think that is fair?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I do, and the reason is other people set up the agency on that basis. When you look at the scale of what is managed in the NTMA, in going to the market, funding that over €200 billion, doing it in a prudent way and managing the assets of the State, you need the talent in the room. When you are talking to asset and fund managers, you need to have people on both sides of the table who know what they are doing.

We have people doing payments - and we failed on this one payment - and we have people doing derivative transactions who need to know which side of the button to press on the FX, which currency we are trading in and all those different aspects. We need to have people of the appropriate skill and experience to do those jobs. The second thing is to get those people who are competing against the banks, law firms and engineering firms, etc., so, yes, I do.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It sounds like a very good salary to me. In that regard, there were 270 personnel within the company who also received €2.5 million last year in State-related bonuses. Am I correct in saying that is all coming from Government funding?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Absolutely. Regarding performance-related pay, again, that is another aspect of the pay models and other tools. It is non-pensionable performance-related pay and is common in the marketplace. We are probably a little different in that we publish the amounts and, generally, the average would be about €9,000 or €10,000 to about a third of the staff.

The one thing is we tend to disperse to more staff because all parts - the front and middle office - are important. Rather than pay large amounts to some people who might appear big, as the industry does, because it might incentivise the wrong risk-taking behaviour, we tend to disperse to between 30% and 40% of staff.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I am interested in the State Claims Agency and the duty of care to those who have been wounded by Government policy, such as thalidomide sufferers, those with hepatitis C and now the Air Corps.

Is it the policy that staff get pay-related bonuses to help ensure that the State Claims Agency fights these cases every single step of the way and to try to break down plaintiffs and get them to withdraw their claims?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Before I ask Ciarán to comment on the cases and the management of claims, to be very clear, performance-related pay is set on an agency-wide basis. It is not set for one business unit over another. The approach would never be to pay performance-related pay for a specific item to incentivise somebody to do a particular-----

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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What do they get the pay-related bonus for?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The pay-related bonus depends on the performance of the individual in their overall duties and the performance of their business area in the wider NTMA.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Is Mr. O'Connor telling me it has nothing to do with claims?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

People in the State Claims Agency are one cohort, who also get-----

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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They are getting pay-related bonuses for ensuring claims do not go through. Is that not the case?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

No, not that. It is for the performance of their duty overall to fulfil their mandate. They are not incentivised to do one specific thing over another. They must always do the job to the best of their ability.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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The State Claims Agency failed to spot chemical exposure of Air Corps personnel, even though it did health and safety audits from 2006 until 2026. Am I correct in saying that? It failed to see that, and that there was no adequate PPE.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Maybe I can answer that because I am the director of the State Claims Agency. Our risk management team, comprising scientists, engineers and people qualified in environmental and fire safety, did carry out audits in Baldonnel in 2006 and 2007-----

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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They failed to see, however, that the staff were not wearing PPE.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I ask the Deputy to just bear with me for a minute as I want to explain. The particular area that is the impugned area was called the old engine repair flight workshop. By the time we carried out our audits in Baldonnel, that had been demolished or it was disused. I think it was disused in 2006 and demolished in 2007 so it was never, in fact, inspected by our risk management people. They could not have been aware of any issues with that particular workshop at the time.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Were there no certificates of compliance from 2006?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I might just explain to the Deputy what we do. Our risk management is to advise and assist State authorities. One of the things that we are most conscious about doing is to ensure that somewhere like the Air Corps, Navy or Army – just looking at them as a group – has in place safety performance management. That is what we do. We do some audits.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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When the team investigated this, however, was there safety performance management in place?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It was in place.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes, when we went there in 2006 and 2007, we absolutely made sure that such performance management systems were in place, and they were. By the way, we did carry out spot audits of various parts of Baldonnel. Very often we commented negatively on things that we found.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Did the team spot at that time that there was a failure to store carcinogenic and highly corrosive chemicals on the property? Did it see that?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

As I said, that flight workshop was gone when we did the audit. Generally, in terms of chemicals management, we have found that the Air Corps is adhering to proper practice.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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How many cases are there? Was it 24?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We had 11 originally and 13 very recently.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I have also been told that 65 Air Corps personnel died due to the health implications of what happened there. Where are those cases?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We only deal with cases when we have claims in front of us. That is confined to the 24 that we have.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I just want to go back to the cases the State Claims Agency has. Has it received any cases yet in relation to the State's inability to diagnose and care for females with endometriosis?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes, we do have endometriosis claims. I do not have the information broken down here but we would certainly be able to forward that information to the Deputy.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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It is a huge issue that is not being addressed by the State at the moment so there will be a lot more endometriosis claims coming down the line.

I also want to go back to CervicalCheck. Are there still cases on file in that regard?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes, CervicalCheck is still ongoing. As the Deputy probably knows, our involvement in that is very much on the periphery. It is the laboratories largely that are involved in the litigation. To give the Deputy some figures on it, 411 claims were created by us; 245 have been finalised and there are 166 cases outstanding.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Does Mr. Breen have the number of cases yet for endometriosis?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

In fact, I do, as I had it for a different forum. The Deputy can imagine the plethora of information that I have, but I can send that to her.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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That would be fantastic. I thank Mr. Breen very much.

Some 51% of the agency's workforce is made up of women. Why is there a gender pay gap of 15.1%?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The Deputy is right. The gender split is about 51% or 52%. We produced a gender pay gap report. First, that is not an equal pay issue but a representation issue. I think it was over 20.5%. We have the data from four years ago and we have had four years of improvement.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Are men being paid more?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, and that is a representation gap. When I started in the financial markets in the 1990s, it was heavily male orientated. Right now at executive management team, EMT-1, we have 43% representation. It is getting better. There is a representation gap whereby there are more senior men in those positions. We have a number of different things to try to improve it and it has improved over the last four years when we look back over the various reports. It is a very top item at the agency board and the remuneration committee, RemCo.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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So it is a man's world.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Hopefully it is changing but there is more to be done.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I want to go into contributions that are paid for superannuation. That increased from 14.2% to 16.3% of the salaries of respective members of the scheme. Why are the contributions transferred externally to a managed fund?

Mr. Ian Black:

I will take that. The NTMA Act provided for a pension fund to be established. That was back in the nineties. There is a separate pension fund for our staff. The service provider is Mercer. An actuarial review is done every three years. Pension schemes have a triennial evaluation - every three years. It went up but I am pleased to say it has come down now. From 1 January 2026, it is now back down to 14.3%. It is based on the advice of the actuary. What the actuary is trying to do is ensure that the benefits that were promised to the employees are paid.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Is that standard practice with all State bodies?

Mr. Ian Black:

It is standard practice for State bodies with a separate fund.

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

We have a few with a separate fund. The Central Bank would be another example.

Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I keep saying that it is a great place to work. It seems to be a fantastic place to work. I am sure every State body and every State employee would love to be working in the NTMA, between State bonuses and having a fantastic pension ahead of them, as well as huge salaries. I would like to come back in again in a while. I thank the witnesses for answering my questions.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank everyone for being here. I will start on the national debt. I am sorry for being repetitive but when you are down the line as a speaker, a lot of questions have been asked. To clarify, is the actual amount about €200 billion?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

As the Comptroller and Auditor General confirmed – I always think of gross debt - the national debt was €230 billion at the end of 2024. I can give the Deputy the up-to-date picture if he wants.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, if Mr. O'Connor does not mind.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I will just get it.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Different figures were bandied around and it is a very important figure.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

To be honest, I have respect for people as it is not easy because there is gross national debt and gross general government debt compared with other EU countries.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am asking about what we describe as the national debt, in everyday language.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I would always use the gross.

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

There is a legal definition. It is the amount outstanding of the total indebtedness.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What the Comptroller and Auditor General reported was €232.6 billion at the end of 2024. Where are we now with that?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

To be honest, I would quote a different number. I do not want to confuse the Deputy but basically, at the end of 2024, gross general government debt was €216 billion. Neither figure is wrong; it depends on the definition. That declined to €210 billion at the end of last year. We will publish the account shortly. It is forecast to decline marginally next year and then start to rise up to 2030.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It will start to rise then.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Based on the forecasts.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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These are forecasts. Could Mr. O'Connor explain why there will be a rise?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I do not have the pack here. The Department can comment. Obviously, in its submission to Europe, which goes out every three or four years, it has growth assumptions, inflation assumptions, Government spending assumptions and revenue assumptions

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Public expenditure.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Then there are contributions to the Future Ireland Fund, etc. – all moving parts.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So, we will be reversing the trend of recent years, whereby we were reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio. We are going to start reversing that trend in the coming years.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes. Not to complicate it, depending on the moving parts, the ratios might stay the same or be slightly better.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Depending on GDP.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, but the nominal debt may rise. Definitely in the 2030s, there is potential to change-----

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is that largely due to increased Government expenditure?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It is a bit of both. First, there are very ambitious plans for infrastructure in the country and a big capital spend will be necessary.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The national development plan and so on.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Exactly. That is a large factor. However, two things are happening. I apologise if I get too technical. First, one of the positives about more people at work is that the Social Insurance Fund, SIF, is getting bigger. That was depleted during the global financial crisis and the Covid pandemic, but it is rising again. That is in one pocket for the future and cannot be used for other purposes. Then, obviously, there are the transfers to the Future Ireland Fund, which is another positive development, depending on where the debt-----

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Those two factors mean-----

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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For how many consecutive years have we been reducing our national debt?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Without asking the Comptroller and Auditor General, I would say the last five years.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The last five years.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So we were on a trajectory of reduction.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

We peaked after Covid.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What does Mr. O'Connor envisage in the next 12 to 24 months?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The forecast does not go out too far. Forecasting is dangerous because you get recency bias. However, the debt is set to rise marginally up to 2030.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. O'Connor envisages a reversal of the trend of reducing our debt.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes. On the basis of the forecast, it is reasonable to say that.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The cost of servicing the debt in 2024 was €3.1 billion. Do we have any figure for 2025?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It will be coming out in the accounts. It is a very similar number.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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A very similar figure.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It is very similar to €3.1 billion.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The average coupon rate was about 1.5%.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The average cost is about 1.5% currently.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What is the average term to maturity currently? I know Mr. O'Connor said it is a moving feast. Reference was made to ten-year bonds.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It is about ten years.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is about ten years, on average. Mr. O'Connor explained earlier that there will be a graduated impact in terms of rising rates.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The international turmoil owing to the invasion of Iran and so on in February was such that the ten-year bond went from 2.86% to 3.23%.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Are we still at those levels?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

There or thereabouts.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There was an auction cancelled at one point last month. Could Mr. O'Connor explain the reason for that?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Let me describe that. We had a scheduled auction. It was this week, actually. We cancelled it in favour of doing a syndicated tap to raise €2 billion.

Rather than having, say, a €1 billion auction, we signalled the tap to the markets last week. It is not unusual for us to do that. We had good demand-----

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What changed the NTMA's mind? It planned to have an auction and then did not have one.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

We have to announce our auction schedule a quarter in advance. We announced it but we had in the back of our mind that we might do a syndicated tap if conditions were right.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Some of that is hedging, in the sense that the NTMA may say it will have an auction although it may not have one.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, but we do not do that too often.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is hard to put a cost on the international turmoil and the increase in international interest rates to us as a State, but there will be a significant impact.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, but it will be gradual. A Deputy asked earlier what a change of 1% or 2% would mean, but I did not get to answer. The simple way of thinking about this is that it will be gradual. That is the positive of what Ireland has done on the debt side. If you take €200 billion of debt and it costs, say, 4%, that is €8 billion per annum, not €3 billion. It takes time. If the debt is €250 billion at a rate of 4%, that means €10 billion. In the mid-2030s, you could face that. In the early 2000s, the average cost of Ireland's debt, and the debt of most countries, was 4% to 4.5%. That is more normalised. Even this week, borrowing at over 3% is not a bad rate by historical standards.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The international turmoil is effectively going to cost us hundreds of millions of euro.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It depends on how it evolves.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Even from February to now, it has cost us.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It has cost more. There is a slightly higher yield, but the yields were already up around 3%, so I would not want to overstate it.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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In terms of refinancing in the low-interest period, are we confident that we are maximising our position?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

That is probably for others to decide, but looking at what we have done, we see that we were probably the most heavily pre-funded country in the world.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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On the question of our debt versus our assets, we have the Future Ireland Fund, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund and so on. What are the exact figures for those?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Ms Brady might want to answer that.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

The figures we submitted at the end of 2024 were €8.4 billion for the Future Ireland Fund and €2 billion for the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund at the end of 2024. Contributions received during 2025 were €4.1 billion for the Future Ireland Fund and €2 billion for the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. That means there was a little under €17 billion at the end of 2025 in those funds. In ISIF, which is split between the directed portfolio and the discretionary-----

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is about €30 billion, is it not?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Yes.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We have just shy of €50 billion in investments as a State. Would that be accurate?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

It is €30 billion.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Thirty billion euro in total.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Yes.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What kind of rate are we getting on those investments, on average?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

The rates vary completely and each needs to be considered individually. The Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund were both operating under interim investment strategies from when they started in the latter part of 2024 and in 2025. They were managed by the funding and debt management team.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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At what kind of rate?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

It was in or around 2% annualised.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Two percent.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

They were in relatively highly rated European government and quasi-sovereign bonds while we developed the long-term strategies for the fund that they are now moving into.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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One of the reports mentions that we have lent money to other governments. I think the sum is almost €14.9 billion. Could Mr. O’Connor clarify which countries?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I would prefer not to mention individual countries, just as you would not mention a customer's bank account, but let me explain what is involved. As members all know, we have a large cash buffer in terms of pre-funding the State and managing the timing of cash flows.

What do we do with that money while we are sitting on it? One option is to place it, sometimes with the Central Bank of Ireland. For example, we would buy foreign treasury bills issued by other governments throughout Europe to try to get a higher return. Sometimes the debt management offices can lend overnight or one-week money to each other. However, we would lend to the better sovereigns with the highest credit ratings. That is the only part of it. There are no more specifics, to be honest. By the way-----

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Did we incur any bad debts through that?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

No.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is safe.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Yes, but the Deputy can imagine the position with these volumes of money. To give an idea of the cash flows, tomorrow we will pay €11.6 billion back to bondholders who lent us money ten years ago or so. We need to have large balances to manage that.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We have that €11.6 billion.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Absolutely.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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If I may turn to the State Claims Agency, much has been said about it. Are there are outstanding claims of over €5 billion?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Estimated.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Obviously, that is subject to how matters proceed and so on.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That suggests to me that the average length of time for a claim to be settled is quite long.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes, I agree with the Deputy. It is longer than we would like it to be.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What would it be?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

It varies. A claim arising from a road traffic collision is settled relatively quickly. However, a claim involving a catastrophic injury arising from medical negligence can sometimes take up to five years. I have said before to this committee that if we had the pre-action protocol, it would make a significant difference to the very issue the Deputy has raised, namely, the lifetime of a claim.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Can I ask about the humane approach, particularly in relation to healthcare cases, which make up a large proportion of the claims against the State?

We hear harrowing stories on the news in which families say they have to fight every step of the way before there is an admission of guilt. Where is the tough stance coming from? Is it from the State Claims Agency or the HSE?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We manage it. It is not the HSE, but-----

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What about delays and admissions of guilt when it is obvious there was malpractice, for example?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

These are very complex claims. I refer the Deputy to something Mr. Justice Meenan said in his report:

As the Agency provides indemnity to defendants in some 90% of clinical negligence cases, it is inevitable that it is the subject of criticism. Criticism of the Agency is often widely reported. It is rarely appropriate for the Agency to respond to such criticism.

He goes on to say that obviously there are many times we are commended on the way we deal with cases. It is difficult in the current court system to be in that tension.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is there any assurance to the members and the public that there will be a change and a more humane approach taken going forward? Is any reset going to happen?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We genuinely always take a humane approach. If there were to be the best possible outcome, it would be for the pre-action protocol in clinical negligence actions to be put in place, and we are awaiting that.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I do not want to get into individual cases, but we are all aware of cases where people say they had to wait until the steps of the court for there to be an admission of wrongdoing.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Sometimes these are complex cases in terms of liability and causation. They are not amenable to instant decision-making.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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On salaries and running costs, 830 staff seems a high number. I was slightly taken aback by that number. Did we get a figure for the average salary in the organisation?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I do not have it to hand but we can come back with it. I think it is in the region of €95,000.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Of the 800 people, €95,000 is the average.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

That is of the NTMA.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There are 850 people on an average of over €90,000. That includes everybody within the organisation.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It is everybody including the affiliates, but the affiliates like HBFI and the SBCI have their own boards.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will not get more individual than that, but it is a high average. Deloitte was mentioned with regard to the fraudulent claim and the consultancy fees. Will they give an indication as to how much is spent on consultancy fees annually by the NTMA?

Mr. Leonard McKeown:

It is disclosed in our annual report in the note to the accounts. It is in note 5.7 on page 143. There is a breakdown. In total for 2023, it was €2.4 million and in 2024 it went up to €3.9 million. The reason for the increase was partly driven by the establishment of the Future Ireland Fund.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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They are not legal fees. They are consultancy fees.

Mr. Leonard McKeown:

The breakdown of the €3.9 million is that €1 million is legal, €1 million is tax, €800,000 is actuarial, but other advisory is only €300,000. We are not talking about consultants.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The witnesses are all very welcome. I want to start with prize bonds. What does the NTMA do with the money held in prize bonds?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Prize bonds form one of several products in Ireland's State savings. That funds the State, basically. We have to borrow over €200 billion and one very important source of that money is the money that our own citizens effectively lend through ten-year solidarity bonds, prize bonds, Post Office Savings Bank, POSB, account, etc. That is €24 billion now – it was €6 or €7 billion back before the global financial crisis. We use that to fund the State.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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What is the average interest rate on the State's long-term debt?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It is 1.5% on the overall debt.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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The prize pot paid out on prize bonds is 1%. How does NTMA come up with that? Does it have a particular formula? Does Mr. O'Connor think it is sufficient or fair to the consumer, bearing in mind it is the consumer not a corporate investment firm?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

We take many factors into account, as the Deputy can imagine. The Deputy is right – it is 1%. Of course, it is tax free so that is equivalent of 1.5%-----

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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It depends how much you earn.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It is depends on the DIRT on the product. In the low interest rate environment when we were borrowing at negative rates and people were paying us, it was still positive but we increased it, so the prize fund has gone up threefold. It is still a low rate compared with some of the longer term products.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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To be fair, it has substantially reduced from what it was originally.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I totally agree.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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So what was the highest percentage?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The highest it ever was?

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Yes. The highest.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

In the early 2000s, when Ireland was paying 4.5% for its debt, I suspect the prize bond rate might have been 3% or 4%. The prize bond rate at the moment is 1%. When we compare it with all other products in the market, we pay higher on the ten-year bond. It is a 2% rate tax free, which is equivalent of 3%. It is in the broader mix. It still remained quite – how would I say-----

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Attractive.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

There are different opinions on that, of course - a popular product. There is €4.5 billion in prize bonds. There is some small reduction in recent years but it remains popular. With the chance to win, there is the question of what you are forgoing. If there were interest rates of 6% from a bank, you would probably see people leave prize bonds. When rates are low it becomes more popular because there is a chance to win and eventually get you money back if you want it.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I suppose we are seeing more competition in the market with the likes of Raisin opening up the European market.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Of course, yes.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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There would be more competition.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

We watch those, yes.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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So NTMA will keep increasing that under review.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Always.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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And obviously bearing in mind being fair to the consumer, and they are consumers, not professional investors.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

Absolutely. There are two sides. The Deputy is absolutely right. We are in the retail space. That is why, if you look back across our products, when interest rates went negative, I was being asked why we were paying positive rates there when we could borrow billions from the bond markets at negative rates. It is because it is a retail customer base. It is a long-term customer base and a very loyal one. That is very important. There was a time we were paying too much versus what we could get now. It is a counterbalance these times. It is a very important product for us and we try to get the balance right because there are also taxpayers who do not have any savings and it is their money we are paying to pay people who have savings.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. O'Connor. I will move on to ISIF. When NTMA is considering what to invest in, does it take any national strategic approach? For example, we really want renewable energy in Ireland but the investment by ISIF in renewable energy is very low. I would like to see a more strategic approach taken by the national treasury in terms of investing in the State's priorities.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

I will ask Ms Brady to take this.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

I will come back to the direct question on renewable energy, but for ISIF as a whole, on the Irish portfolio aside, we have four key seams which are aligned with State priorities. Those are food, agriculture and the marine; scaling indigenous businesses; housing and enabling investments; and climate is the fourth one. Within climate, by far the largest portion is around renewable infrastructure. The climate theme from a global perspective has come into its own only in the recent past, over the last decade or so. The theme, as a stand-alone within ISIF, is our youngest theme, so when we look across the board, that is one of the key reasons it is one of the smaller ones. That said, we announced last year we had completed our first billion of commitments into climate. Again, the checks that are towards the larger sides of investments tend to be the infrastructure builds as they are the ones that need the most money. When we announced the completion of the first billion, we also committed to an additional billion into climate from the ISIF fund over the next number of years.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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By when?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

We said by 2030 but we would expect to make, and we are making to date, very good progress on that because of that need the Deputy spoke of.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Good. I will turn to the State Claims Agency. We have talked a lot about the different claims. In terms of its role in advising on mitigation, looking at maternity cases, etc., what steps is it taking in terms of mitigating systemic issues?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

On the clinical side, if you take the initiative of the national neonatal encephalopathy group, which is a tripartite between the infant and mothers health part of the HSE, the Department of Health and ourselves, we have been doing a lot within that group on mitigating for example the incidence of cerebral palsy and looking at causal factors in that and trying to make the mitigations we possibly can.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is the agency tracking progress there?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is this work achieving its goal in mitigating the risk?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

It is. In fact, we have seen a fall off in the number of cerebral palsy cases. From 2022 to now, the numbers of cases are falling. Why is that happening? I am guessing there are probably a lot of different answers to that but one part of it, no doubt, is the lessons that are being learned from the claims that are going on.

We also have a project called the Claim Project which is part of our clinical mitigation. That is where we take real-life claims, look at all the issues in those claims, including those identified by our own experts, and we try to feed back the learning from that to the hospitals and come up with a series of recommendations as to what they should do, and we follow up on those.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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On CervicalCheck, am I right in saying 25 cases went to the tribunal?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

That is right.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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How many of those were appealed to the High Court?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

The Deputy knows the tribunal shut down?

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

So there was very limited engagement with that tribunal. All of those cases fell back within the brief of the High Court afterwards.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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How much did the tribunal cost?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I have no idea what the tribunal cost. It would be a matter for the Department of Health.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Okay.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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That avenue was not a success in dealing with these matters.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No. It was a great pity because it was taking it away from the High Court and putting it in a less adversarial tribunal situation, which we definitely wanted to engage with. We were hopeful that it might actually have the kind of success that it should have had.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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In terms of witnesses and legal advisers, does the State Claims Agency have panels and witnesses and legal advisers with rate cards?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We procure our solicitor panels and we secure our-----

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is that done case by case?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

No. What we do, at various points for a five-year or four-year period, is procure a panel of outside solicitors. We have our own lawyers and legal teams in-house as well. We also procure our barristers and-----

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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What about rate cards?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We do not procure our witnesses, for example, as to causation and liability. We do not do that.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Do the barristers have rate cards or does the State Claims Agency negotiate individually?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We negotiate individually with all of the barristers.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Would Mr. Breen not look to move to rate cards?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

What we try to do when we do the individual procurements is look to the individual's strengths. Obviously, fees are also important to us and making sure we are getting the best value for the State. We think that-----

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is there room for improvement on the fees side?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We find that by procuring the way that we do, barristers compete with each other and we feel we get the kind of value that is best for us. In fact, if the Deputy looks at our legal fees as a percentage-----

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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What would the average payment rate be to a barrister year on year? Has it gone up and, if so, by how much?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

During the financial crisis, we imposed caps. We have kept some of those caps in place for classes of claims. Has it gone up? Yes, it has gone up from that time, but not significantly.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Does the agency track the percentage increase per year?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Once it is set for the procurement period, it is set for the procurement period. In other words-----

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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With barristers, however, does the State Claims Agency have-----

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes. If a barrister tenders, and there are bands, as the Deputy can imagine, then he or she must submit the fee based on that band throughout the period of the procurement until the next procurement when we might agree new rates.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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Is that not possible with witnesses?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

We cannot do that with witnesses like, for example, expert clinicians who come to give evidence. The reason we cannot do that is that, under Order 39 of the rules of the Superior Courts, we have to ensure that they are completely independent. I will give the Deputy an example. We had cases where we had used the same expert, a well-known retired obstetrician, a number of times. In one of the cases, he was attacked or, rather, his evidence was put in question on the basis of the question that he had been hired by the State Claims Agency. That was the first indication to us that anything like that might happen. We took advice, and the advice was that we should not procure those because they would not be deemed to be independent witnesses for the court. They are not there for us; they are there for the court to give utterly objective independent evidence on any individual case.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Breen.

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

I am sorry; I just checked the appropriation account for the Department of Health. The total expenditure in relation to the CervicalCheck tribunal to the end of 2024 was €4.2 million.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses. I am sorry but I am going to go back to Mr. Breen on the State claims. I hope he can catch his breath. The NTMA website states that he has been the head of claims since 2001. Is that correct?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

That is not quite correct. I joined the NTMA at its inception in 2001 and became director in March 2007.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Breen has been in this world for almost 25 years.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

That is right.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Is that roughly correct?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

That is correct.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In recent years, or perhaps it is more than recent years, clinical claims, in terms of the overall value of clinical medical negligence claims, to my mind at least, have gone up significantly as a total of the number of claims the State Claims Agency has to deal with. Is that a fair assessment?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

That is absolutely right. Even though, in volume terms, they are nothing like our general indemnity scheme claims, in terms of value, they are much higher.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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For example, there was €4.3 billion of clinical claims in 2024. Does that figure sound correct?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

That is absolutely correct, yes.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Maternity claims make up almost two thirds of those clinical claims, at €2.7 billion.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Perhaps we will just deal with maternity claims first. How often is liability admitted by the State in respect of those claims?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

My experience over all of the years dealing with those cases is that there are very few cases where, at the outset, you would take the view that you would concede liability or causation because they are terribly complex cases, as the Deputy can imagine. When do we get to that point and why do they take so long? I suppose that is the question the Deputy is asking. We are often waiting on our expert to provide reports. Getting experts and waiting to get those reports can be a difficulty. That is number one. There comes a point in time then when we take a very definite view on the case and we might invite the plaintiff's side to mediate the case with us or engage in negotiations. However, because they are so complex, there is not an easy "Yes" and "No" scenario in those claims.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Let us deal with maternity claims. Would Mr. Breen have or be able to give an indication in terms of, let us say, the percentage of claims where, at a certain point, the State acknowledges liability in respect of those claims?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I put out a statistic earlier in relation to mediations. I am talking now purely about clinical negligence mediations where damages have been agreed with the plaintiffs. That figure now stands at 46%. That means that in 46% of all cases where damages are paid, it is not done on the steps of the court but at mediations. We would like that to be at 80% or 90% on our mediation case results. Unfortunately, we have a lot of cases where the cases are falling to that steps-of-the-court situation. Why does that happen? Very often, it happens because we simply do not get schedules of damages or information that we require to do-----

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Let us deal with those cases. How many of those are dealt with on an assessment-only basis as distinct from liability?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

When the Deputy says "assessment-only", what-----

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I am referring to where the State has admitted that there is a liability but the row, essentially, is about the damages, as distinct from the wrongdoing and the acknowledgement of the wrongdoing.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

There will be a number of things. There will be liability and causation arguments in some of those cases as well, but there will be a group of those cases in which we will be very anxious to have settlement where quantum would be at issue between the parties. To give the Deputy an example, we had a particular case recently where we were asked for close to €60 million and we settled that for, obviously, a fraction of that figure. That is the kind of thing that sometimes happens, whereby we will get very large demands for quantum. Inevitably, that delays the length of those cases.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Breen indicated that in major clinical medical negligence claims, the cases could go on for a period of five years. The human stories in relation to those cases are very often highly traumatic. It is appalling what the families have to go through. The impression is very often left that essentially the State, in whatever guise, has dragged the family - the mother, father and child - through the system only, at the very end of that process, to provide the compensation to which the parents, leaving aside the legalities of everything, felt they had an entitlement to. Is that a reflection of the fact that in practically all of the major medical negligence claims that the State Claims Agency deals with, or at least virtually all of those involving maternity claims, liability is basically either acknowledged or the plaintiff is successful?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes. The truth of the matter, if you want to talk about contested cases, is that for only 2% of cases do we go into court and contest them in that way.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In 98% of cases on the medical negligence side-----

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

They would settle before trial, through mediation or after a couple of days of trial, for example.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The longer the duration of proceedings, the more traumatic for the plaintiffs, the humans involved, but there are also major cost implications associated with those delays. As these cases continue, the costs continue to rack up. There are costs for plaintiffs, solicitors and barristers. There are costs for the State Claims Agency. In the 98% of cases, the State is paying all of the costs for everybody and the damages associated with those liabilities.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I do not want the committee to be left with an impression that we are unnecessarily delaying these cases. The fact of the matter is that we are paying out multiple millions of euro on behalf of the State in these cases. These are very deserving cases where people are badly damaged and we cannot forget that, but we have to do our jobs to ensure we are doing the right things about the right kind of decision-making to ensure that when we make those payments, we are paying the proper level of compensation and are doing so as expeditiously as we can. The Deputy will probably be aware that there are factors over which we do not have control. Delays are often visited on us. We would like to but cannot control those. If the Deputy wants an answer to all of this, I would ask, as I have many times at this committee, why we do not have a pre-action protocol, similar to that in the UK. If that were to be introduced, in so many different ways, taking account, as the Deputy says, of the tragedy and the length of time for cases and the costs associated, you would make significant change.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That protocol rests with or is the responsibility of the Department of justice. Is that correct?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

It does. The making of the regulations, yes.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We are still awaiting the publication of those regulations. There was an interdepartmental report in approximately 2024 on the associated costs. These regulations flow from the 2015 Act.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

That is right. The Legal Service Regulation Act was the enabling Act. Now it is just about the making of regulations.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Going back to my original point, and Mr. Breen has been doing this for over a quarter of a century, does he meaningfully believe that the publication of these pre-action protocols would mean that in subsequent Committees of Public Accounts over the next five to seven years the meaningful expenditure by the State in respect of clinical negligence claims would come down?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I do, and that is important. The answer is a resounding "Yes". More critically, it would put plaintiffs and us, as the respondent on behalf of the HSE, on a much more even keel in terms, as the Deputy described it earlier, of that feeling of being wronged by the State in the litigation process. We would reduce that feeling and that tension because we would get easier engagement between the parties.

James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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It is not the responsibility of the State Claims Agency but the responsibility of the Department of justice. When does Mr. Breen anticipate, or does he anticipate, that we will have the publication of these protocols?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

It is hard to say exactly when but I can tell the Deputy that as a statutory consultee, we furnished the Department with very significant advices on what we believe the protocol should contain. I know that work is being done on it. I had hoped that we might have it here by mid-year but that is clearly not now going to happen. It would be great and significant if we could have it by the end of the year, allowing for a waiting period where you have to put the various institutions of the State, such as the hospitals and, indeed, plaintiffs' lawyers on notice that you are going to do this to give them time to get used to it and put it in place in an appropriate way.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I have a number of questions. On the fraud case and the €5 million, I know that €2.5 million has been recovered, which is welcome. Has it been established where that fraud originated?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

As I might have said earlier, and said last year, I am somewhat constrained. I want to be as transparent as possible but it will not surprise the Cathaoirleach that the money moved quickly through a number of jurisdictions. In terms of trying to recover it, and-----

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Do we know what jurisdiction?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

We do, in terms of tracing it, but it would compromise the Garda criminal investigation. I want to be as transparent as possible but I am afraid-----

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The money was moved.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

As these things tend to happen, it was moved.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I know that because of the ongoing investigation, Mr. O'Connor is precluded. Has it been established as to whether there were any State actors involved or was it purely a criminal enterprise?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

It is very hard to know. This is becoming quite common all over the world. People talk about nearly running businesses to do it. The money was moved internationally quite quickly so it is very hard. We do not know the threat actor but we saw where some money went and managed to get some of it back.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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We have established that had not happened previously within the NTMA. I have a general question for the Department. Are we aware of any other agencies under the remit of the Department with similar situations?

Mr. Pat Leahy:

In terms of fraud, is it?

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, similar to-----

Mr. Pat Leahy:

We are not aware of anything else other than that, no.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Okay.

Mr. Pat Leahy:

Certainly not, no.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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I will move to the report back in March. I will read from it briefly: "On the French Riviera, the yacht-dripping city of Cannes may be best known for its film festival in May but each March wealthy individuals of a different kind throng the resort." It went on to state, "Irish property players have long attended the hooley but this year, for the first time, an official Irish contingent showed up. The Irish Strategic Investment Fund ..."

What was the purpose of that trip?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

It is an international property forum and the purpose of ISIF's attendance was to meet with and encourage partners to invest international capital into property in Ireland.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Was it was the first time a decision was taken to attend?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Was that in 2024? We have been the past two years.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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This was 2025. ISIF has been there the past two years.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Yes.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. How much did it cost?

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

We can-----

Ms Rebekah Brady:

We can come back.

Mr. Frank O'Connor:

-----come back. In 2024, we might have had two or three ISIF staff. This year-----

Ms Rebekah Brady:

Three ISIF staff the first year and two last year. It would have meant flights and accommodation.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Ms Brady might provide us with the full detail of that. It is also reported that banks, developers, property giants and mortgage lenders sponsored the trip.

Ms Rebekah Brady:

They did not sponsor ISIF's attendance, flights, accommodation or anything.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Were any sponsorship arrangements in place-----

Ms Rebekah Brady:

For ISIF, no.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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-----for any of it?

Ms Rebekah Brady:

There was not, no. What usually happens at these conferences is that the sponsors have stands and various tents and pavilions for presentations, etc. None of ISIF's expenses were sponsored.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. The Minister and senior officials attended. There was a lot of media coverage around a sponsorship arrangement. Perhaps I will ask the representatives of the Department. What was the nature of that sponsorship arrangement?

Mr. Pat Leahy:

As far as I am aware, one individual from our Department went to this event. There are the normal rules around travelling and subsistence and I am not aware of any sponsorship provided to the Department. I could not comment on anything else. I am not aware of that. In terms purely of the Department of Finance, the normal rules applied for the person attending.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There have been attempts to establish. I know the Minister has refused to say how much the banks, developers, property giants and mortgage lenders spent to sponsor this trip to Cannes for this event.

Mr. Pat Leahy:

I think it was the Minister for housing. Our Minister did not go, so I would not have any familiarity with that. I am sorry.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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ISIF had no involvement in any of that and any costs were fully covered, from ISIF's perspective. I want to return to the issue of the Air Corps. When was the first case lodged or taken?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

The earliest cases were probably lodged around 2013-2014.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Again, for the record, why did it take so long for the case to be settled last year in 2025?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

It is obviously difficult for me to talk about any individual case because you will understand that we have to respect the confidentiality of any plaintiff. I can say this to you definitely; during that period of the time, from the time that the summons was originally served, there were delays following that in terms of how the file was progressed, not at our end.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Were the delays on the other side?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

They were not on our end.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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It was not on the State Claims Agency's end.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

I am not saying that in any critical way, but there were delays until we finally got to settlement.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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Were there any disclosure actions taken against that discovery?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes, there were. The discovery was not actually in the case that was settled. The discovery was in respect of the lead case, which actually was not the case that was first settled. The Chair will probably be aware that in that particular case both the High Court and Court of Appeal upheld our discovery applications to limit discovery, and the Supreme Court overturned that finally.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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The State Claims Agency fully complied with that. Was the State Claims Agency found to have been in breach of the Supreme Court?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

There had been a breach by the Air Corps in that it had not made proper discovery. It was ordered to make proper discovery, which it ultimately did.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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This ultimately prolonged the case-----

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Yes, that did prolong it.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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-----so Mr. Breen's prior statement that the delays were on the plaintiff's side-----

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Sorry, I was not impugning the plaintiff at all. I said that there were delays there-----

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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There were delays.

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

-----and I agree with you that one of them was the breach in relation to the discovery. That did delay it.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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In relation to Baldonnel, I think the State Claims Agency portrayed the issue as solely down to the engine room. Is that where predominantly the chemical exposures took place? Am I right?

Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Certainly based on the claims as pleaded, the references are to the exposure over a period of time relative to that particular locus.