Mr. Michael Nolan:

I will defer to my colleagues who will answer some of the Vice Chairman's questions.

I do not understand the Vice Chairman's comments that we got the figures wrong. We are not at the point yet where we have concluded a process and come to a final determination on the cost of delivering the scheme so to say we got our figures wrong is highly premature. Changes have been made since 2015. As he is aware, inflation is a major factor in any increases. In de-risking the project in the past 18 months we have uncovered some additional risks that we would not have known about if we had not gone through this first stage. The Vice Chairman described the regular design and build, D and B, type contract as the old type of contract but it is the new type of contract. The pubic works contract, PWC, has been around since 2008. It is reasonably new. Before that it was re-measurement contracts. If we got into a design and build contract we would have found those risks during the currency of the contracts and would have paid a heavy price for describing those risks during the currency of the works. It would have involved additional moneys, additional time, significant delay and disruption, not only for the contractor but also for the community and all the motorists going through the site. One of the benefits of investing in de-risking the project through stage 1 using the new engineering contract, NEC, was that we would reveal those risks which normally would not be revealed until later during any sub-engineering contract. That was the benefit of stage 1.

What we learned in stage 1 can be mapped into stage 2 if we go to stage 2. If we do not go to stage 2, those learnings and what we uncovered during the first year and a half with the contractor and all the development of the traffic management plans, which has a high value, will be used in any new procurement. Either way, that work would pay dividends, shorten a re-procurement and de-risk the project significantly. That investment was highly valuable.

With regard to the reason we opted for the new engineering type of contract rather than the old type of contract, I will defer to my colleague, Mr. Paul Moran, who is the division manager from the area. He has come from Cork today for the meeting. He has been living with this scheme for the past four or five years and I ask him to address that point.