Mr. Damien McCallion:

I concur with the Deputy's assessment on the wider issue. In terms of the backlog, we are trying to identify capacity with the current providers we have. The reason for that is the lead time to connect a new laboratory is significant and that would add further delays. We have identified potential capacity in other jurisdictions that we may be able to avail of or may be able to encourage to compete for our HPV project.

The Deputy's assessment in terms of the risk within Ireland, or the perception of our market in Ireland, is fair. There is a lot of concern in the wider community in that regard, which is one of the challenges I mentioned in terms of the market engagement process. To simplify, as we all know, in a normal tender, one puts out a specification, people bid, the process is closed, everyone sees what comes out at the far end and that is assessed against various measures. If we did that, the risk, given the factors the Deputy has outlined, is that we would not understand what the market is feeling and we would not be able to reflect it in our tender. The option we have taken allows us to have a dialogue which allows us to make sure that when we put in a specification, we have a good chance of getting providers to bid for that. That is trying to address the issues-----