Mr. Tom Costello:

It was not the first time a two-stage tender has been worked. It has been used by the National Roads Authority, NRA, in early contractor involvement, ECI, contracts, as well as being used widely in the private sector.

In this case, we made a decision to get our quantity surveyor to prepare the bill of quantities. It was not prepared by the contractor. Accordingly, everyone is working off the same basis.

A bill of quantities went out to the contractors and a check was done to make sure a fair rate was applied to every single item. The Senator will know from his own experience that there are arguments as to whether it is €15 or €20 for a four-inch block. In this case, when the check was done on all the bill of quantities, it was deemed that the tender from BAM was balanced. It was competitive but it was not below cost. It was deemed to be a reasonable tender supported by a really high-quality bid. BAM was not just bidding on a bill of quantities basis. It had to set out how it was going to approach the job across all the different disciplines of health, safety and environment.

One thing on the positive side that was prescribed here relates to the local community benefits package. We have always set out that the project should be a legacy project. It is of such a scale that it should obviously be a legacy for childcare in the future but also for the local Dublin 8 area and the city generally. Within the contract were things as diverse as the local employment benefits, but the quality of the submission that came back from BAM, and indeed the other tenders, was outstanding and supported its commercial bid. I confirm that the bills of quantities priced by each of the bidders was the same bill of quantities.