Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Good. In 2015, the new hospital board appeared before this committee prior to my becoming a member of it. As a result of previous issues relating to the original project, the new board appeared before this committee. Absolute assurances were given to the committee that the board had learned its lessons, governance was in place and no issues would arise. In the same way that Mr. Watt told us in his opening statement that the Department has learned lessons, the board stated at that time that it had learned the necessary lessons. Did Mr. Watt look at the transcript of those proceedings? He did not. Well, I did. I took the precaution of reading the transcript of that meeting and looking at what the board members said. I then followed up regarding what the Department was to do. It was to produce a report on what had been learned from the debacle that led to the meeting. I ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to provide the figure written off in regard to the previous hospital site.