Mr. John McMahon:

It got €5 million out of €16.5 million paid to date, with €17.5 million probably being the final cost. It got a significant proportion but it was on our framework and had the scale, capacity and experience to deal with an event of this size. Ideally, we would love to engage a multiplicity of smaller contractors but for the management necessary to knit an event of this magnitude together, one really needs firms with experience and scale. It is like building work. One would not get small house builders to build large buildings because they do not have the capacity or experience. That is the analogy I would use.

The OPW has a good record in terms of apprenticeships. The Deputy will recall that during the recession, we had conversations at other fora.