Mr. Mark Griffin:

There are a few questions. I will try to answer as comprehensively as I can. When one looks at any major infrastructure project, whether roads, public transport or water, there is reliance on external contractors. That is a given. As the Accounting Officer responsible for a budget of €2.6 billion, I need to make sure that we have a team in place to do serious due diligence on expenditure and the performance of the contractor, checking whether deployment milestones have been hit, premises have been passed and connections have been made. It also needs to check that the claims for permitted expenditure and subsidy as set out in the contract are given the required level of oversight. We have approximately 30 departmental staff.