Mr. Jim Breslin:

The reason that the VAT figure has increased is that the overall cost went up, so it is not that VAT was not included in the original cost.

The development board can speak on the sprinklers. There were sprinklers in the patient areas in the hospital design, that is all the inpatient, day-case wards and so on. The change related to the outer concourse. I think that decision was made by the fire officer rather than An Bord Pleanála. The Deputy's point is at the heart of the lessons we must learn on this. We must use the PwC process to identify precisely where the slippage took place. From the work done by the development board and the external reviews there are already areas that we can identify. This includes the control of costs and the quantification of items, the linkage particularly in the mechanical and electrical side and quantity surveying and the development board, and how volumes and omissions are being identified through the design process. Another aspect is how an early warning system did not pick up that it would have an over all cost impact as quickly as it should. There are aspects around the approval processes and using some external review of that, such as using milestone reviews on projects. We are committed to examine every weakness in this process, identify where responsibility lies and also ensure that we put things right, both for this project and for any other project of a similar scale.