Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am looking for a number of things. We need to look for more up-to-date information, up to the end of 2021, in regard to inflation and projected inflation. We know that 4% is the threshold and there is a problem once it goes beyond that. Has forecasting been undertaken in the context of further rises in inflation and are there projections for 2022? One of the reasons this has overrun in time is because the contractor did not provide sufficient staff on the site, and it was done on a month-by-month basis in the early stages and deadlines were missed. That is something we addressed when the hospital board were in here and it is acknowledged that it was a problem. Can we ask them about the number of staff or the number of people who are actually on-site, and if the targets are still being missed or whether that has improved? The longer this goes on, the bigger the risk in regard to inflation, particularly now that we are in a time of increased inflation, in particular construction inflation. Can we seek an update on the contractor claims? Members might recall that some of them were at a mediation stage. We also need to know if the moratorium on the High Court actions is still in place. Those would be my main asks in regard to what we should go back and seek.

It is incredibly difficult to deal with this when we have not been given the report that was done in that we are trying to anticipate things without having the firm ground of responding to the findings in that report. Those are the issues that come to mind immediately.