Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

It is important to recognise the background to the Baker Tilly Ryan Glennon report. I have not read the entire report, but it is on my reading list for next week when I will read it from start to finish. That is why I am not ruling out the possibility of appointing an inspector.

The fraud was detected by CIE which initiated the report. However, the company did not inform the Minister, as it should have done. It did not inform the Minister about the existence of the report, but it did detect the fraud and act on it. Of the 156 recommendations made in the report, 146 have been implemented by CIE. The remaining ten have not been implemented for good reasons.

I will be expecting the new chairman to do exactly what Deputy Ross suggests. When he or she is appointed, part of his or her instructions from the Government will be to look at how procurement occurs in CIE, how the company spends its money and ensure the practices followed in the past are not still continuing. That will be the job of the chairman rather than the Minister or the Government.

The Deputy alleges the practices deteced in the Baker Tilly report are still widespread in CIE. I have no evidence that that is the case. If there is such evidence, I want to see it. It is not reasonable to say that if fraud was detected by the company in 2005 and 2006 and acted upon, it must still be continuing. I do not accept that view. There must be some evidence to back it up. We cannot assume that because there was fraud five years ago, which was detected by the company, there must automatically be fraud now. I do not accept that automaticity.

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