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

I will first go through the list of questions. These relate to the question the Deputy has asked about the review. Mr. Tom Costello said the main work on the original plans was carried out by a business services team. Therefore, the board or whomever gave most of the work to this team, which, presumably, appointed the architects and worked up the plans in the context of making the original application for this 16-storey hospital building. The decision of the board at that time was to refer essentially all of the elements of this work to a business services team. I think we need to question that team in the context of what led it to believe that a planning application in respect of a 16-storey building could be successful; whether it examined the city or county development plan, as would be done for a normal site; whether it decided the footprint of the site was such that it would be allowed by the planners; and what analysis was conducted of services on the site and so on. Is Mr. Costello aware of the analysis carried out by the team in the context of the lead-up to an application being made? In other words, had it ticked all the boxes along the route to planning and then reached a point where it said, "We have ticked all the boxes; now we will make an application"?