Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. I am not suggesting the HSE should know how to do big projects. I am just saying that is what was decided. However, we now see that there was absolutely no point in having this board because it did not seem to have delivered on the competency in terms of keeping control of costs or watching how things were being done. It just seems shocking that a board would be in a position whereby inflation of this magnitude would not be highlighted to the Secretary General at an earlier stage. Mr. Breslin spoke earlier about where the increases are, why they occurred and why they were not flagged. PwC is going to find out. We have talked about early warning systems. I would argue that the whole point of the board was to avoid this situation arising in the first place. We have a document listing all of the auditors.

It listed Mazars, Deloitte and Linesight. It would be very useful to the committee, in order that we would not have to ask for it continually, if an additional column could be inserted indicating the fees for all these experts and auditing processes. Despite having all these experts, we have still ended up with a project that will be almost twice the price quoted when it started.

Is it true to say the guaranteed maximum price, GMP, will be maximum price unless the parties involved say they want to construct an additional building or a new lift, for example? Is that what we are dealing with? Can we guarantee today that the price is the price and there shall be no increase unless we ask for something new to be built?