Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the statement. I do not know if they watched the earlier proceedings, when we spoke with departmental officials. What we as a committee tried to impress upon them was a degree of urgency with the matter, and we have some work to do with other Departments.

Representatives of Transport Infrastructure Ireland met the committee before Easter and they pointed to a number of issues as they saw it. It was helpful for us to hear them. They spoke about the need to align stakeholders and address planning and regulation. They spoke from the perspective of delivering projects. The main question they raised was the need to address fundamental problems with public contracts.

I will ask a couple of questions and I am sure others will pick up along the same theme. How are these problems manifesting with projects that are ongoing and what impact will be seen for projects in the pipeline? What does the Government, including the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and senior Ministers, need to do to straighten this out?

Within that ask, what are the most urgent things they can do?