Professor John Higgins:

My role in this area is finished. I am still on the leadership team and head of the College of Medicine and Health. I hardly need tell the committee that capital projects, above all else, are ultimately about the elected representatives making the decision. We are not asking to build a hospital. We are asking for a 20- to 25-year view to be taken, which we do not do well or often enough in Ireland, and to decide on a site. That is a political decision in which the HSE makes a choice on the site, hopefully with input from real expertise, the Government, the private sector and so forth. It is not that difficult because it is not as though there are 50 options. However, we must make the decision to look for the site. We are not building the hospital.