Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It was said earlier that prior to Covid there seemed to be a delay in the roll-out of the project itself. This was my sense because I travelled in and out of St. James's Hospital for about 38 days and there did not seem to be a huge amount of activity on the site. This is just anecdotal evidence. There was a lot of concern in the media at that time. Was that helpful? There was a "Prime Time" programme on the slowness of the actual building on the site. Quite a lot of cranes seemed to appear then and we could see floors going up. Do the witnesses believe that media interest in the site, and perhaps the interest of politicians and taxpayers, has been helpful in moving the building onwards?