Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is the way it should be. I am accountable to the Oireachtas and my officials are accountable to me. I am satisfied that my officials behaved entirely appropriately during this and the reason I am satisfied is because the PwC report does not find anything to the contrary and actually finds that their work, and this is my clear interpretation of what it found, was impeded and impaired as a result of some of the failures that happened - let us call it - further down the line.

Regarding the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, and in fairness the Deputy raised this a number of times before the PwC report so he has a consistent record on this, which I acknowledge, the PwC report finds that a changing of the board could have caused a bigger problem, so the right decision was to reappoint the board. The question I am asking, and I am asking it now as opposed to answering it but I will be asking it of Mr. Barry and considering it with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and I will be reporting to Government in due course on an implementation plan, is about the information the development board received when it hired quantity surveyors who hired other people to cost the project. On page 4 of this report PwC finds that there were - I have to be careful with my words - very peculiar ways of going about some of the business there that did cause difficulty. There is quite a detailed chapter that shows that as well.