Eoghan Kenny questions regulators on trust monitoring failures

Come on, there's a guy here looking at it. I want to welcome the witnesses as well. Just from the very few questions that have been ongoing from my own colleagues, it just seems to be the case that you have to be told about issues as opposed to ongoing monitoring. And I see you're shaking your head there, Ms. D'O'Larry. Like, I completely disagree with you on this, because this had to be brought to your attention by a new CEO. So this had to be brought to your attention. So ongoing monitoring was failing. So there's no point shaking your head at this, because shaking your head at this is not any comfort to the people across the country who have to bail out the Peter McFerrie Trust because of lack of ongoing monitoring. And that's a fact. Who was in charge of the internal or in charge of the inspection from both yourselves and both charity regulators? What are the internal staff members? We had one internal staff member and an external accountant. Why? Yourself, sorry? Similarly, one external, one internal. Why aren't those inspectors here today? Well, it was Abra that was invited. They're not. We asked the inspectors to conduct a statutory investigation. Both of you had one internal inspector each. Yeah. Why aren't they here? Well, from our perspective, the inspectors are appointed to act independently and to carry out the investigation. Staff members of yours, they're paid by the state. Why aren't they here? And prepare the report. And then their function as an inspector is finished. Did you not ask them to come with you here today? Like, there's questions here that I have in relation to the inspectors' reports that more than likely you probably won't be able to answer because there are questions in relation to the specifics of the report. Why aren't they here? So, Deputy, I'm authorised to answer any questions that you may have, and I would hope that I could furnish you with the answers. As ever, if we can't provide everything to you today, we will follow up with that. When did you both start in your roles, your relevant roles now? August 2024. And September 2024. Very good. And did you both work previously in the same organisations? I did. I did not. Did you have a role, did you have any communication with the former CEO, CEO 1? No, I did not. Never spoke to him? No. What was your response to the CEO 2's original letter in July 2023? Do you have an actual response to that? Our response was to write and ask for two documents that were referred to in it, the financial sustainability plan and the minutes of the meeting at which it was discussed and that were referred to. Mr O'Leary. So, on foot of the initial notification, there was a meeting with the Chair and the CEO. Then I believe there was another meeting a couple of days later. As I said earlier, we asked for information. That didn't give us the necessary assurance that everything was fine. And that's why we undertook to conduct an investigation. You'd said you had concerns in March 2023. My colleague, Deputy McGrath, had asked you, do you regret that statement now? How don't you regret that? I didn't have concerns in March 2023. What I think I was pointing to there was that the Board and the Audit and Risk Committee in the organisation started to be made aware of issues in March, yet it was July before they made any disclosure to us. Yes, but this goes back to the monitoring. Why do you have to be made aware of the issue as opposed to you being monitoring the issue? So, Deputy, the simple answer, and you won't like it, but it's true, the organisation was not up and running by July 2023. Our monitoring programme was not yet in place. Our assessment was at pilot stage. Everything that we have done since... The monitoring system was up in place for July 2023, was it? We would have had some data, one year of data. Did you have any data at all, so in March 2023, in relation to the Peter McFerry Trust? Yes, we did have information, but... Nothing structured to say. But that's exactly the point, Deputy, that everything that we got suggested everything was fine. And to your, I'm sure, thought, it's not good enough for us to rely on that, and we do not rely just on information that is given to us. But it does take time for those things to be set up and put in place. What are the specific circumstances in relation to getting rid of trustees? You said you couldn't. What I said was we have to apply to the High Court for an order and the specific circumstances. Do you not believe that was necessary? No, because at the point that we were notified, we were gathering information and didn't have any evidence of wrongdoing or anything else on which to go to court. Did either of you ever ask for the previous, for CEO one, to attend any meetings? No, they were interviewed by the inspectors. Did you ever believe it was necessary, before the inspection started, that you would both meet with CEO one? No. No. Again, though, Deputy, that was part of the questions that were asked in July and August. And the information that we were given gave us no comfort here, and that's why the investigation was launched. And that's why absolutely all CEOs were interviewed as part of that process. Am I correct in saying, just in relation to Deputy Gagan, am I correct in saying that the Gardaí approached ye for the reports? You are correct. Were ye, at any stage, going to bring the reports to Angarda Siakana? Or were ye waiting for them? No, we weren't waiting for them. I guess we were keen that Angarda Siakana, like all other relevant regulators, had access to the reports. When did Angarda Siakana approach ye? I think it was February. So this is what the inspectors... It was in advance of our report being issued. Yeah. Okay. So, in advance of that, were you going to bring it to Angarda Siakana's attention? We didn't have a specific evidence identified as part of our investigation that was a reportable event. Say, for example, now Angarda Siakana haven't approached ye. Say if they haven't, would you have brought it to the attention of Angarda Siakana now? We, as my colleague has identified, we would have distributed and did distribute that to a number of bodies to make them aware that we had conducted that investigation. But would you have brought it to the attention of Angarda Siakana? Yes. Under what circumstances? Just as an awareness, like we did with the charges. So there were no specifics within it? No specifics at all? We didn't have a reportable example. And that's important. If you see the report, there is nothing specific in it that would warrant that. But we did want to, like I said earlier, we did want to make sure that anybody with an interest in this area had access to their report. And then if they wanted to follow up with us afterwards, we were available. On the date you wrote to the chair and the CEO to say that you've appointed inspectors, the chair the same day released a press statement to say that there is no evidence of financial irregularities. Did you see that? Yes. Did you not realise, like, what is she doing here? Or did you not say that to yourselves? Did you not go back to the chair and say, what are you releasing press statements for if we've appointed inspectors? Well, look, I mean, at this point, Deputy, and this is where, if you have a statutory investigation, the general interaction that you might have with an AHB, that needs to be put to one side while the investigation follows its course. You said there to Deputy Bennett that you have hope. I think it's one of the most disgraceful comments I've ever heard. You have hope in relation to this. There's been a 15 million euro bailout from the Irish people for the Peterborough Act Ferry Trust. They're sitting here listening to you to say, do you have hope in relation to ongoing monitoring and the correct governance being put in place? How do we know in six months' time that we won't have to bail them out again? So, look, this is everything that we're doing over the course of the last number of months since the publication of the report. And if I might add to what I've said, I suppose what I was trying to get at was that I had faith in the current board. So you have faith in the current board. When does hope finish? What evidence is there to provide you? Hope isn't a strategy. Hope isn't what I rely upon. What I do need to give to my own board, who is the regulator, is demonstrable progress in terms of what is happening. Are we moving in the right direction? And to be clear... Are we? Yes. As I said in my statement, we are making progress. We have done so increasingly in the last couple of months. When will you have full confidence? It will be, Deputy, I would say... What do they have to prove to you to have full confidence? They need to be compliant with an assessment, like any other AHB. When will the next assessment take place? I would say we won't do that until we have more information around the structure of the organisation. When will we have that more information? For a long time. Next year, Deputy. So we'll be waiting another year before we know whether or not we have full confidence in the board of the Peter Macfairy Trust. I think what I would say is that we are making progress. Things have stabilised. To be fair to the trust, both the executive and the current board, they have done, I think, a remarkable job to maintain their service while putting in place better policies, better procedures. What we're now looking at is the culture of the organisation changing. Just very quickly, since you've been established, is there any other Peter Macfairy Trusts out there? No, there isn't. Definitely not. We haven't seen anything that comes anywhere. We haven't seen no serious irregularities with any other organisation. So, Deputy, the answer to that is that we do assessments and we publish the outcomes of our assessment on our website. They can be compliant, not compliant, working towards compliance, statutory action. We have currently a number of AHBs, around 10, who are in a fairly extensive monitoring programme with us. We have identified issues that need to be addressed and we have seen AHBs over the last couple of years come into that process and come out of it the other side fine. I think the assurance I can give is that there is nothing on the scale or level of PMVT that we have seen over the years. What our report, I think, has outlined is a litany of failures across the organisation and we haven't seen that elsewhere. Thanks, Deputy.