Eoghan Murphy (Dublin South East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Mr. McCarthy and his officials are very welcome to the committee. Mr. McCarthy is probably aware that over the past three years this committee has been back and forth with his predecessor on the Poolbeg incinerator project. That is the issue I wish to address with Mr. McCarthy today. To date, about €108 million has been committed to that project over a ten-year period. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is responsible for in the region of 10% of that funding, yet nothing has been built. We are quickly approaching 50% of the original costs of €266 million that were intended for that project, but still nothing has been built. Those costs have now ballooned to about €500 million according to the Dublin city manager in Dublin City Council.

Europe has told us that one of the firms was procured illegally, so they have gone since January. There is a serious conflict of interest case which has still to be adjudicated upon in Europe. We have had four formal reports since 2012 each of which has focused on weak governance and poor financial management. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has had a person on a project board but that board has never met formally, so we have no minutes as to what it has been doing for the past ten years. What is the Department's position on this project now?