Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is. The Government of the day consciously made a decision, which remains the Government's position, that the best way of delivering this project was to bring in that expertise and professionalism rightly referred to by the Deputy that, with no disrespect to my Department, does not exist in-house in the Department such is the scale and magnitude of this. Appointing a competency-based board that I have described as a "Who's Who" in terms of professional qualifications and experience allowed it to bring in professional expertise. The legal power did not reside with me or the Department in terms of the awarding. It resided with the development board.

The Deputy spoke about the bill of quantities. He reminded me of something. The benefit of this two-stage procurement process - the GMP process as it is now known - was that it actually locked in the price per item at 2016 costs. We were badly let down by the quantities being entirely incorrect. Members have heard that in the evidence given to this committee and other committees. The cost of a widget is still at the 2016 level but they need a hell of a lot more widgets. I want to know who messed that up, and it is one of the reasons the Government wants a review. Who got that wrong? When we know who got that wrong, we will take action. PwC will not take the action. That is not what it does. It will identify what happened and then we will act. We will act as a Government whether it is through powers we have under contracts we may have had with professional companies or whether it is through changes in governance structures, boards or personnel. There are lots of reasons for the composition of the €1.4 billion but that is really where a large proportion of it is. The good thing is that prices were locked in at 2016 levels but the really worrying thing was that quantities were so off. The quantities were not decided by me or the Deputy. They were decided by professionals who were paid a handsome fee to get this right and that is what we must get to the bottom of.