Mr. Tom Costello:

It depends on how a cycle goes. Part of the current cycle is the characteristic of it being so inflationary, and as Mr. Pollock has stated, a two-year delay carries a tag of 6% or 7% per annum of an uplift. If we were in a deflationary cycle, as we were post 2007, it is likely we would have made a very different decision. As I stated to Deputy O'Reilly earlier, the analysis that was done prior to making the recommendation to go ahead factored in all of this. One could make the assumption described by the Chairman but there is an opt-out clause. Contractors do not always behave well and if the contractor took a really aggressive approach towards us, we could find while working with the design team that there was no collaboration. Our contract is based on that. The right answer in such a scenario is not to go ahead with another phase. Sometimes this depends on money and we are talking about that today because it is very important. In order to achieve project certainty, having had it tough to get to this stage of cost and programme certainty, it is important that everybody on the team, including contractors, the client and those relaying the requirements of the Children's Hospital Group, accept that it is fully defined. Everybody must work together to honour this. There is a contractual risk and associated responsibility in any case. People must genuinely work together to ensure we deliver the hospital to a high-quality standard. In the delivery, everybody should come to work and go home safely in the evening. These are really important elements.