Mr. John McCarthy:

Yes, it was a financial risk. We modified the one-stage approval process in order that we would allow latitude for a local authority and if it encountered certain types of issue, for example, unknown ground conditions that gave rise to a significant cost, it could come back to the Department for an increased budget for the project. However, the financial risk piece does not seem to have been got over because in the latest construction status report we published on the position at the end of quarter 2 in 2018 there are probably around 200 projects of a scale that could go through the one-stage process, but, from memory, only about 12 have used it. A more general review of the public spending code is being initiated by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. It is an issue at which we are going to have to look again as part of it to see how we can have an improved take-up of the one-stage process and get things moving, rather than have local authorities going backwards and forwards to the Department when they do not need to do so.