Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses and everybody involved for their ongoing work. We fully appreciate how difficult this is for everybody involved and we know the effort that has gone in to date and which continues. It is possible this could be taken as a given but it is still important to say it nonetheless.

My first question relates to the value-for-money element that is clearly absent from this entire exercise. There was no value-for-money analysis or cost-benefit analysis, from what I can gather. What kind of economic analysis was done? There must have been some. We were talking about spending a large amount of money and Mr. Breslin's Department has frequently had to answer in public about what is perceived by some as being a waste of public funds. Clearly some economic analysis must have been done on the level of money being spent. To what extent was economic analysis done, who conducted it and will the witnesses share the findings with us?