Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We spoke earlier about the technical and financial ability and so on. The witnesses said that all the people dealing with this have done projects in America, Spain and all over the world and are highly skilled. They know the finances and technical issues and have done this in big countries. My worry is that if all that financial and technical ability is on their side of the table, it is not possible for us to have an equivalent level of experience in the field to match it on the State side. As Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, I always get worried when we enter negotiations that the entire worldwide expertise for the industry is on the other side of the table because this is just another country to some of these people. It would be our first time to sit down with these types of people and consider contracts like this, whereas they may have done it several times in other countries and they know how to get the best out of negotiations.