Jim D'Arcy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Let us not scapegoat Louth County Council. It is the only body that has spent money on this project. It has spent more than €1 million to date on it. Nobody else has spent a penny. The estimate was provided by Roughan and O'Donovan and not Louth County Council. The costing was analysed, including by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. Everything was above board. I would be very annoyed if Louth County Council, which took on this project on behalf of everybody else, was blamed for what has happened. It succeeded in getting the then Minister, Deputy Varadkar, to change his mind on the tender issue. I have all of the relevant letters. We need to move forward with this project and discontinue blaming Louth County Council for what went wrong. Louth County Council deserves only credit for driving this project. The Minister's official, Mr. Dominic Mullaney, knows that. He has assessed the situation and has been very fair about all of this. Let us move forward with this project.