Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Okay. When the board went to the tender process, the weightings used were 75% on price and 25% on quality. That does not really square with the emerging narrative that the children of Ireland deserve the best hospital in the world, and one would be putting a small bit more emphasis on quality if that was going to be at the absolute top of the agenda. I cannot square the statements made about wanting this to be the best. I am not getting into whether it is the most expensive and I think that once we are in catastrophic overrun territory, it does not matter. However, it does not square with the notion that everything was going to be done to the highest possible standard because, actually, far more emphasis was placed on getting this done cheaply. We see now where that was because, obviously, the lowest bidder was going to get it if 75% was going on price and 25% on quality.

Perhaps the Minister can comment on that. He is the one who keeps saying he wants it to be the best in the world but 75% was on price and we see now that the emphasis on price is going to cost very dearly. The Minister used the phrase that somebody got the quantities seriously wrong. That is a wee bit of an understatement when we are dealing with cost overruns of this nature. The Minister might comment.