Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The analysis being undertaken is costing €200,000. I asked about the Department. Let us consider what the Comptroller and Auditor General said. Recommendation 7.1 states that, "The Department should put in place robust controls to ensure compliance of future grantees with relevant grant management and reporting requirements". We have a situation where the Department is a nominee on the board of directors but is unaware of anything, which begs the question: why is there a nominee at all on the board?

The second matter is the 50% of funding being conditional on private funding. It was not included in the performance delivery agreement nor could it be explained to the Comptroller and Auditor General. I am paraphrasing from the report as to why that was not done. I welcome that there was a new Secretary General and a hands-on approach regarding this but somewhere along the line, we got deflected with Covid-19 and the bad weather. I agree they have been particularly difficult but that does not take from the absence of robust controls.

See this speech in context