Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister mentioned funding allocations. My concern, however, is that money allocated recently has not been spent. It has been sent back to the Department. Perhaps the Minister will answer some specific questions. When does she anticipate the report on the ODCE and the botched Seán FitzPatrick investigation will be published? The Minister was not in her current role last June when the report landed in the Department. Surely it cannot take this long to write a report on that report.

Has the Minister met the director recently to monitor what is going on and to ensure another trial does not collapse? Will she commit that the new agency that will replace the ODCE, Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, will be more accountable to the Oireachtas because, as I have outlined, the current system of accountability is not working? The last time the ODCE was before an Oireachtas committee was in January 2010, a full eight years ago. Such a level of accountability and lack of oversight is unacceptable. Has the Minister figures on how many prosecutions led to convictions in 2017, considering none were achieved in the previous two years?

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