Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the process that the board is in at the moment. It is well known that construction companies often tender for a job and make their money on their claims so I appreciate the robust response that the board is taking to claims. It does have an impact on the legal costs of that process too. Mr. Gunning has just discussed the following issue. Can he outline what measures have been taken to ensure that legal costs are kept to a minimum and, equally, the professional fees that we have seen increase from €130,000 in 2019 to €700,000 in 2018 and up to 2019? Perhaps he can give us a flavour of how he tried to ensure that the necessary work of robustly defending claims has been managed and, equally, how legal costs have been kept to a minimum.