Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is fair to say. However, procurement experts were hired by the board and the Government contracts committee was used. That individual was not the person on the board to make the decision on the procurement processing but, rather, was there in an individual capacity for a competency-based board.

The Deputy returned to talking about building houses. It is fair to state she has decided that the GMP process was the wrong way of doing it. She said she would not do it that way and would not build a complex project or house like that. However, the evidence available so far suggests that it was the appropriate model to use for a complex project. That was the view taken in the Mazars report and by the Government contracts committee and the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. It remains to be seen what PwC will conclude but there is currently no expert view available to me that it was the wrong approach to take. That is not to say that there have not been significant problems. There is yet to be an expert view that it was the wrong approach but I await the outcome of the PwC report.

On lessons learned, in many ways putting in place competency-based boards and new structures such as this involved learning lessons from the past. However, clearly, things still went wrong. The most obvious lesson we need to learn regards the lack of an adequate early warning system. That is the real frustration for me as a Minister, for the Government and, I am sure, for committee members and taxpayers. It was very quickly disclosed to me by my Department as soon as a problem arose. However, the fact that there were no early warning systems or flags coming up the line through all of the various structures is my current significant concern. We will see what the PwC report says in that regard. I envisage that governance changes will be required and I will act in that regard when I get the PwC report.