Mr. Michael Kennedy:

The procurement was definitely bogged down. We had got to a stage where we had a preferred tender appointed and then the financial crash occurred. The funders would not come into the market to fund a private sector bid to build the scheme. We had to engage with the European Commission to try to progress the scheme, to see how we might do it in terms of the procurement process. We did not want to have to start the entire process again. That was 2010. It was 2014 when we awarded the contract. There was significant downtime because of the funding crisis. Had that not happened the scheme would have been built long before that. Once we had got over that hurdle, and I am looking to my right at colleagues in the National Development Finance Agency who were our financial advisors on the matter, we eventually did get funders to come back into the market. A very limited pool of banks was willing to fund then. Earlier, additional schemes were mentioned. These were developed at a difficult time for the economy and gave many jobs in the west at a difficult time for the economy. It was very difficult. The procurement was very difficult, and getting the scheme to construction.