Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I can understand that, but the public would also be deeply frustrated if we did not learn lessons from large public projects of the past that resulted in massive overruns and delays in construction. A timeline could have been given for the delivery of the national children's hospital, for example, but it keeps being delayed. An exact start time could have been announced three or four years ago but we would then find three or four years later that it was not. We are better off being honest and upfront and getting the planning process right in order that we can avoid that sort of elongation of timelines once we get into the building phase. That will not be the case for this project because a much more detailed assessment will have been carried out in advance.