A committee found that taxpayer money was used to pay for a person to present a paper at an overseas conference instead of the son of former opposition floor leader Na Kyung-won.

A fact-finding committee at Seoul National University has been looking into possible irregularities in a research thesis written by the lawmaker's son, surnamed Kim.

The committee said that as Kim was not able to attend the conference, a graduate school freshman at the time decided to attend instead as a presenter.

But the committee said that the person simply organized content for a poster on the thesis, which is not enough contribution for that individual to be indicated as an author on the paper.

It also found that research funds from the Korea Health Industry Development Institute were used to pay for the student to make the trip to Milan for the conference, which totaled over three million won.