Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Clearly, they knew. They must have had a handle on how the costs could escalate. When the board was considering the bids, did no one express concern that one of them appeared to be an outlier in terms of cost and might not be able to deliver this project for that amount?

It was far out of line. The sum of €131 million is not a small amount of money; it is a huge amount. If one thinks about the people who are working in the hospital and how long they will have to work to pay the taxes necessary to generate the money to be able to pay for it, one is talking about massive amounts of money. Did nobody scratch their head and think that there might be something hidden here or wonder how this was such an outlier? It strikes me as odd that the board would simply opt to choose the lowest price bidder and nobody questioned that. I would question it. If it was even a small household project and if a bidder was making a significantly lower bid, I would question it. I am trying to get a handle on what the thinking was at the time.