Mr. Michael Nolan:

The Deputy mentioned that people are confused. As Paul Moran said, there have been many yellow jackets on site over the last 18 months doing all the advance works and investigations. That has all finished in the last few months. That was part of stage 1 - gathering all the new information and de-risking the site. People will have seen a great deal of activity and then a lull in activity. That might have given the impression that things had stopped and the money had dried up. That is unfortunate, but that is the nature of stage 2. Usually on a major infrastructure project of this type, when people go away work is happening behind the hedgerow and nobody sees it. However, this is a highly visible location so people see the activity and then they see no activity. That, perhaps, gives rise to additional confusion and speculation in the area.

The Deputy asked about what will happen over the next 18 months and whether we can give guarantees. In the next 18 months we have a decision to make on whether to go to stage 2. If we do not go to stage 2, we are not going to spend the next 18 months going through a tendering process without doing any work. We will do as much work as we can there. We will continue with the service and utility diversions. We will do some slip lanes that help cycling and walking there and get that out of the way. It will be a benefit to have that out of the way before the main works start. We will do a great deal of work over the next 18 months. It is not as if we are just going to do paperwork and go through the tendering process, advertising and evaluating tenders. Much more than that will happen. Paul Moran can speak on that as well.