Mr. Peter Walsh:

I thank the Senator. I cannot comment on Roadbridge and I will not speculate as to what may have happened. It operates internationally, so I am not even suggesting it is purely down to the Irish market. In regard to the risk transfer, we started the motorway programme using the FIDIC contract in modified form and what was the IEI third edition, the engineering contract that had been around for some time. Both of those identified circumstances where if additional cost arose, it would be the subject of a claim for additional payment and the initial tender sum would be adjusted according to the assessment of what had happened. There was nothing wrong with that. There was a perception that in some way the industry was making exorbitant profits out of this. It was not. I worked in it since the early 1980s and I can be fairly sure that it was not making extraordinary profits.