Mr. Robert Watt:

This has been gone over. The Official Report of this committee and of the Committee of Public Accounts is a written record and it shows our views on this project. There was a two-stage process, which is unusual and that reflected the scale of the project. There were major flaws in how this two-stage process was managed, that in effect it was thought that the estimate was based on a final specified detailed design. It turned out that was an outline design that was not complete. The subsequent bill of quantities when it came to the guaranteed maximum price was out by some quantum. That explains the cost overruns from the €1 billion plus to the figure that was subsequently disclosed to the committees.

The two-stage process was unusual because we usually go for a fixed price lump sum contract but because of the complexity of this hospital, which is three times bigger than the last hospital we built, Tallaght Hospital, a two-stage process was agreed as the procurement approach. As we said at the time that was not a wrong decision but what went wrong was the implementation of that approach: a decision was made on a cost based on what turned out to be a fairly outlined design when it was understood that was a detailed design. There is more to it but in summary that is the main issue that arose.