John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to go back to this date of 5 July. On that date, a message was sent to the OPW in the standard format to say that a decision had been taken by the other Department that the office was required. It went from that Department to planning and other stages. Prior to 11 July, notice was given that the office was for five civil servants and various survey drawings were submitted. I wish to record these matters which arise from correspondence that is in the public domain. On 11 July, plans had not been finalised and were being described as "draft" in the various e-mails I have seen. I must address the following as I was the Minister of State in question. It was suggested that I generally agreed the plans on 13 July. In those plans, no offices were provided for civil servants. In other words, they were still draft plans and works in progress. It was not the final draft. It may have been referred to by Deputy Harris. In fact, on 16 July, architects confirmed that they were still developing the plans and options. Therefore, to suggest that these were final plans is not correct. These plans were reproduced in a daily newspaper and they were not the plans I had seen. On 18 July, the project drawings were described as working projects. On 27 July, the project went to tender and there was no reference to the Minister in relation to the matter. It was not my job to sign off on those plans. I am not an architect, engineer or clerk of works and, therefore, I am not qualified to sign off. It was done elsewhere in the Department and, as was the case in relation to the tendering process, it could have been stopped at any stage when the tender documents were returned with a price if that price were found to be excessive by the OPW. That did not happen either.

The minutes of the various meetings, which are available, show no involvement whatsoever by me - none. I say this because the PAC is the committee of audit and public accountability and I take my role in this seriously. I would leave no stone unturned to do my job professionally and well. This has caused me some concern, which I have not been able to address up to now in the way that I would like. The letter of 16 May demonstrates clearly that the project was managed and delivered by the OPW out of funding from the OPW itself. At that time, it was part of the Department of Finance. Is that correct?