Mr. John Pollock:

To return to the Deputy's question, in the middle of 2018 the cost overruns were starting to arise. At that stage our board requested that the executive go back and look at alternative options for the project, conscious that we did not have to award the phase B works to BAM Ireland. We had the option to tell BAM Ireland to complete the phase A works and go back out to the market so it did not have any entitlement to get the next phase of the project. It was important for us to conclude the process to say definitively what the overall cost of the project was and in parallel with that, to look at what our other options were.

We looked at two other options, one of which was that we now had a totally completed design with all 6,000 rooms fully designed and detailed. We had a fully detailed specification and bills of quantities, and everything had now been itemised out so we could have gone back out to the market with that and re-tendered the project. The issue with that was that it would cost a further €300 million, additional to the €1.4 billion we are reporting today and it would also delay the project by up to two years. We looked at a traditional model of procurement in going back out to the market and we looked at a construction management model of going back out to the market which might have saved us some time but this had not been done under the public construction contracts and an increased risk would fall back to the client. Having done that evaluation, it was clear that far and away the best option remained to award phase B to BAM Ireland, notwithstanding the cost challenge it poses.

The HSE carried out its review of that process as well as our internal review. We met with the HSE and we presented to it over two days challenging whether that logic still held up but the clear recommendation was that it would delay the project further and it would cost more so the best option in procurement was to award phase B at that stage. That was the decision our board made in November 2018 which was subsequently approved by Government in December.