Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is the letter from 10 May, No. 2152B, and I am reading from the top of page 4. I am doing this in the interests of balance. My view was made clear the last day; this is the HSE's view. In the interests of balance I want to put both on the record. It says:

This review was conducted over a nine-week period and involved the deployment of a highly experienced international PwC team comprising capital project and infrastructure specialists, required detailed examination of over 2,000 NCH project documents, more than 40 in-depth interviews with 52 members of the NCH project team and the development of a comprehensive and detailed PwC report.

This review was of a fundamentally different nature and scale to the high-level advice provided by PwC and others to the HSE in November 2018. We do not see any conflict of interest arising from PwC’s involvement in the provision of high-level advice to the HSE in November and its role in carrying out the review of cost escalation in 2019. Indeed, we believe that the work conducted was highly complementary, given the technical nature of the skills and experience required.

I am just putting that on the record. It would be unfair to the people who I may have criticised the last day. I am not saying whether I agree or disagree, but I made my view clear and it is only fair that I put their response on the public record, in the interest of balance. We will discuss it with those people later today.