Mr. Gareth Llewellyn:

Yes, I know, but I simply do not know. Let me start in a slightly different place. The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge was the largest of its type anywhere in the world. Yes, there were a few issues with it, but there normally are when something new of that type and at that scale is built. TII has won international awards for that delivery. That tells me that the management there knows how to deliver complex projects, and we know that MetroLink will be a very big, complex project. When it is clear in the national development plan, NDP, that there is a 2:1 investment in favour of public transport, it means MetroLink is very important, not just for Dublin but for Ireland more generally. People who live elsewhere in Ireland will come in through Dublin Airport, and access onto other forms of transport is needed.

The one thing I would reflect on, given the scale of these projects, is that the more that can be done early during the scheme design with experts sitting around the table, the better placed you will be to put the right contracts out for procurement and to manage those contracts going forward. I will give the Senator a good example. If you are standing on a platform and there is a metro train coming in two minutes' time, that information needs to be connected into the central control room, which then needs to be connected into the signalling system and the trains themselves. That type of interface and the overall system integration needs to be defined right at the start, because if it is not got right, you end up with inevitable delays and cost overruns as the programme is implemented. My advice to TII, therefore, and my stance is to make sure it gets in place experts on this in the organisation now, not in two years' time, in order that it will have the right scheme design and that, when the contracts go out, it will be clear to the people bidding what those interfaces need to be in order that they can be managed successfully from day one. If that is not done, I think there will be, as I said, cost overruns and the projects will be delayed further.