Mr. Niall Ó Donnchú:

To clarify, the notion that a cultural institution would not be engaged, involved and up to date in regard to a development project of this scale is simply untenable. Of course the director would have been involved and, to varying degrees, the board. The Office of Public Works, as Mr. D'Arcy explained, is the project director on all of this. It was an evolving story in the context of the availability of capital for arts and culture infrastructural development. That situation is still evolving slightly in the context of when the third phase will commence, although it should be very shortly. That is the overhanging context in which the gallery was seeking to work with these contracts.